Currently running a define R5. It houses 2 SSD, and 11 HDD (dual parity, 9 data). I am in the process of upgrading the drives to larger capacity, but thought I might as well upgrade the case for more storage options down the road as well. I would really like to change out to hot swap bays instead, and would like to have more than I currently have available. I think it would be nice to have the 2 parity drives internal so I don't mess them up, but all data drives hot swap if that is possible. I saw in previous posts from a few years ago that people were suggesting and antec 900 case with 3 of the supermicro CSE-M35T-1B 5-in-3 cages. Is this still the recommendation? Ideally, I would like to have room for 4 of the cages, but I could probably make due with 3. It seems that both this case and the cages are old hardware as I can't even find the cage on ebay. I have found it on newegg and amazon, but it looks like its 3rd party sellers. So I am guessing supermicro has discontinued this in favor of a newer model? 

 

So the breakdown of what I am looking for is as follows:

Space to fit at least (3) 5-in-3 hot swap cages, but preferably (4)

Internal space to also fit 2 HDD for dual parity

Internal space for 2 SSD for cache

Something as quiet as possible

Something with filters if possible

Any other features you can think of that I may need. This is only my second build....

 

Thanks guys.

If you can find it, the Antec 1900 (in my sig) has quite a bit of room. It's the case I use and I have 20 drives in it. I think I could configure it for more if I really wanted to get creative. It is very quiet (imo), has filters, but is not hot-swap.

Edited November 8, 20196 yr by whipdancer

7 hours ago, whipdancer said:

If you can find it, the Antec 1900 (in my sig) has quite a bit of room. It's the case I use and I have 20 drives in it. I think I could configure it for more if I really wanted to get creative. It is very quiet (imo), has filters, but is not hot-swap.

Thanks for the suggestion. But the hot swap capability is one aspect that I want the most,

Silverstone cs380b with a SST-FS303B in the 5.25 inch bays.

 

I considered it, but didn't want to compromise on cooling and so went for the R5 with the SST-FS303B which gives me 11 bays.

3 minutes ago, Spies said:

Silverstone cs380b

I have this case and did the case mods recommended by dmacias which improved things greatly.  I put that here for anyone else coming across this thread.

 

It looks like you found something that works well for you.  👍

Might be better to get a case with 5.25 inch bays top to bottom and then just fill it with the 3 in 2x5.25 bays.

3 minutes ago, Spies said:

Might be better to get a case with 5.25 inch bays top to bottom and then just fill it with the 3 in 2x5.25 bays.

Those are rare these days.  They are much harder to find than just a couple of years ago. 

 

I went with the CS380 because it has front-accessible hot-swap bays (without the expense of a bunch of add-in hot-swap cages) and I put a 4xSSD hot-swap in one of the two 5.25 slots.  It works for me but it works A LOT better after the mods 😁

27 minutes ago, Spies said:

Might be better to get a case with 5.25 inch bays top to bottom and then just fill it with the 3 in 2x5.25 bays.

This is kind of what I am looking for, but finding one seems to be an issue. I am even ok with the cube design, but can't seem to locate one with sufficient external 5.25 bays.

On 11/8/2019 at 4:01 PM, jebusfreek666 said:

This is kind of what I am looking for, but finding one seems to be an issue. I am even ok with the cube design, but can't seem to locate one with sufficient external 5.25 bays.

I've seen 1 offered used on Facebook market place and it was gone before I could inquire about it.

I'm under the impression there may be a couple of new models offered like that but they are not available in the US generally (I think I found one offered in Australia?). Unless I stumble across one randomly, I've pretty much given up on the idea of the particular solution.

I have considered looking at a duplicator tower and seeing what could be done with one of those.