This is a cool project, i might do this myself one day. Im just curious how the end result is, do you have any pictures? ?
To make my own "backplane" i think i will use these sata adapters (link below), so that the disks can be hot-swappable.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33017978181.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.20fb1cd9tstxrd&algo_pvid=e4e800c4-48c0-4a92-af99-e534b9ca4e55&algo_expid=e4e800c4-48c0-4a92-af99-e534b9ca4e55-29&btsid=ee04c8d8-e5aa-4bbd-a49d-ac9c6bc60a84&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_3,searchweb201603_52
