There's nothing more fun than cutting into a perfectly good computer case.  If it doesn't turn out right just bury it in the backyard and try again on a new one. 

 

Here are two ideas I had for 8 sata bay boxes.  So, SFF meets storage beast and spawns hideous offspring.  Whatcha think?

Is there room left for the motherboard and power supply?

 

Is there room left for the motherboard and power supply?

 

I'm sure there's room in there.

Queeg does some nice work. I'm working with him on the tiny ten. It came out really good.

Is there room left for the motherboard and power supply?

 

 

Both have room for a microATX 9.6" x 9.6" and of course a miniITX will fit.  They fit a standard ATX psu.  My personal preference is the Silverstone case.

Silverstone does look nice indeed.

Here's the Silverstone with 3 different mobos.  Obviously the smaller the mobo the easier wire management will be.

 

There is 65mm between the drive bay and the psu and I think the fan unit is about 30mm.  Using the Antec Earthwatts 380 because it's fan intake faces the drive bay makes exhaust more effecient.  Each of the mobo's has 6 sata ports and there is easily room for an expansion card to add a couple more ports.

Had to put the third on a new post due to the size limitation.

Hopefully quick question, how much clearance would there be for the CPU HeatsinkFan on the Silverstone?

 

And you're using 4-in-3s? How different would it be using 5-in-3s ?

Yeah it looks to be pretty tight in there.

Hopefully quick question, how much clearance would there be for the CPU HeatsinkFan on the Silverstone?

 

And you're using 4-in-3s? How different would it be using 5-in-3s ?

 

The Silverstone dimensions are 15.47" x 10.63" x 8.35".  I'm assuming they are measuring from the bottom of the feet to the top of the bezel so knock off 3/4 inch.  The Earthwatts psu is 3.25" tall.  Bottom of case to top of cpu probably 1/2 inch.

So...  8.35" - .75" - 3.25" - .5"  = ~ 3.85"  

 

They aren't 4-in-3's.  Look closely, they are only taking up 4.25" x 4.25".  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816212009

After removing the black metal facia the second layer should just snug up to the back side of the Silverstone bezel.  

Crafty indeed.

 

Your calcs seem about right on the HSF clearance. Here's the backside pic to give a general idea:

 

I'm going to restate the HSF clearance.  Silverstone sells a cooler that is 82mm (3.2") tall so I know there is that much room.  

 

Marketing quote from Silverstone page:  The SST-NT06-E was designed and created with one single purpose, to cool the hottest CPUs in the world.

 

Whth upflor and sideflow heatsink fans, you are not cooling the other components on the mobo.  Mobos are designed with downflow air-cooling on the CPU heatsink, and it is necessary to cool other components, like the NB and SB.

 

 

Whth upflor and sideflow heatsink fans, you are not cooling the other components on the mobo.  Mobos are designed with downflow air-cooling on the CPU heatsink, and it is necessary to cool other components, like the NB and SB.

 

 

 

With the low power cpu's typical of unRAID builds just a regular stock HSF is all that's needed.  There are two 60mm fans exhausting air below the psu which pulls air across the mobo.  For certain there is plentiful air flow in this case.  I wouldn't be suprised if the Atom based mobo could use passive cooling.

The Chenbro sata cage:

I believe this is the manual for the hdd backplane, which I found here.

 

Chenbro considers the cage as an accessory so it doesn't have a sales page by itself.  It's just listed as an accessory for several of it's products like the SR107 Server/Workstation Chassis.

 

So the cage is made to be server worthy and is sturdy.  One of the newegg reviews says the fans are very quiet.  I'm not sure what the warranty period for this product is.  However, the backplane pcb is attached with 6 screws.  If the backplane should ever fail it could be replaced by buying another unit and swapping out the board.  Newegg has a 30 day return policy for them.  This is a standard part and will be available for a long time.