Mounting drives on the cheap

[Juyeon]

When I upgrade my rig, I want to repurpose my old hardware as a NAS with four or six hard drives.

The problem is that I don't have a way to mount my drives and just putting them on a wooden table is not the best for either looks or the drives.

So I need to find a method of mounting those drives.

I probably won't mind even if it's a little janky, but I don't want drives to die prematuerly.

And I don't want this solution to cost more than like 10 bucks.

Any ideas??

Note: I don't have any tools. Just a basic ass screwdriver.

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, Juyeon said:

When I upgrade my rig, I want to repurpose my old hardware as a NAS with four or six hard drives.

The problem is that I don't have a way to mount my drives and just putting them on a wooden table is not the best for either looks or the drives.

So I need to find a method of mounting those drives.

I probably won't mind even if it's a little janky, but I don't want drives to die prematuerly.

And I don't want this solution to cost more than like 10 bucks.

Any ideas??

Note: I don't have any tools. Just a basic ass screwdriver.

I’m confused… why not put them in the case? 

[Juyeon]

I don't have a case with many drive cages, only two like most cases these days

[LIGISTX]

3 minutes ago, Juyeon said:

I don't have a case with many drive cages, only two like most cases these days

I don’t think it’s fair to say most cases only have 2…. I don’t think I own a case that has that few, I think most I have are 4 or 6. What case do you have? Can you not just buy a new case? Or use your current case for your new system, and buy a new case for the NAS instead of use the old case for NAS and use the new one for your main PC?

[Juyeon]

48 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I don’t think it’s fair to say most cases only have 2…. I don’t think I own a case that has that few, I think most I have are 4 or 6. What case do you have? Can you not just buy a new case? Or use your current case for your new system, and buy a new case for the NAS instead of use the old case for NAS and use the new one for your main PC?

I have a 4000d airflow

And I cannot think of any case released in like 2 or three years that has 4 or 6

[LIGISTX]

4 minutes ago, Juyeon said:

I have a 4000d airflow

And I cannot think of any case released in like 2 or three years that has 4 or 6

I am not even sure how to respond to that…. Many, many cases have 4, 6, 8+. 
 

Get a fractal R5, it’s one of the go to NAS cases. Or if you like Corsair, plenty of Corsair cases have many drive cages (my homelab is a Corsair 750d, I have 11 harddrives in it, 2 of them are mounted using 5.25” bay to 3.5” adapters).

 

Or go on Newegg, search cases, sort by lowest price, and start looking at them seeing which have enough bays for your needs if you don’t want to spend much.

 

Quick search, this is one of the cheapest I could find. 
 

Check this out on @Newegg: Antec VSK4000E U3 Black SGCC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

 

It is crazy how cheap cases seem to not exist anymore though. That’s unfortunate. 

[Juyeon]

On 7/5/2022 at 12:36 PM, LIGISTX said:

I am not even sure how to respond to that…. Many, many cases have 4, 6, 8+. 
 

Get a fractal R5, it’s one of the go to NAS cases. Or if you like Corsair, plenty of Corsair cases have many drive cages (my homelab is a Corsair 750d, I have 11 harddrives in it, 2 of them are mounted using 5.25” bay to 3.5” adapters).

 

Or go on Newegg, search cases, sort by lowest price, and start looking at them seeing which have enough bays for your needs if you don’t want to spend much.

 

Quick search, this is one of the cheapest I could find. 
 

Check this out on @Newegg: Antec VSK4000E U3 Black SGCC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

 

It is crazy how cheap cases seem to not exist anymore though. That’s unfortunate. 

i found nothing for atx, 6 drives bays on newegg and it seems that the r5 is discontinued.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Juyeon
Quoting

[LIGISTX]

On 7/4/2022 at 8:46 PM, Juyeon said:

i found nothing for atx, 6 drives bays on newegg and it seems that the r5 is discontinued.

I admit, looks like tariffs are hitting hard, cheap decent cases don’t exist anymore which is surprising. 
 

R5’s can still be found on both Newegg and Amazon looks like. Searching Newegg, they have Enthoo pro’s which were pretty popular. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There are certainly options. And remember dvd drive bays can be easily converted into harddrive bays as well, so if you find a case you like that has say 4 HDD and 2 DVD drive bays, pick up a few of these and call it good. 
 

2 Pack HDD Hard Drive Metal Mounting Bracket Adapter, Convert Any 3.5 in HDD Into One 5.25 in Drive Bay https://a.co/d/d5hpuoZ

 

Or they also make full on sleds, but these are just simpler so they are what I typically use. 

[OhioYJ]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:46 PM, Juyeon said:

i found nothing for atx, 6 drives bays on newegg and it seems that the r5 is discontinued.

Discontinued? I just bought one, brand new.  They are easy to obtain. 

 

If you want to use your exsisting case lots of drive bay options on eBay / Amazon. In my initial NAS build I used a cheap case that wasn't meant to hold more than 2 drives, so I used a 5 bay mount from Amazon, came with the drive sleds and fan, $25 IIRC, and I just mounted it to the PSU shroud:

 

 

I replaced this with the R5.