Making choosing a case easier?

[Cranky Old Coot]

I do not buy cases all that often, and when I do look for a case, I am bombarded with options. Few that have everything I need. I would love a "modern" case that can hold all of my platter and optical drives. I wind up looking at secondhand options. Which is sort of a bummer.  I will assume this is inexperience talking, and perhaps there's something out there that makes finding a case a bit easier. I would like to sidemount (if that's what it's called) the GPU, so I have access to the covered PCIE slots for the game capture and Thunderbolt cards.

 

I do not know how else to explain it. The current case I do have, is the ancient Corsair C70. 

[IkeaGnome]

How many HDDs and optical drives are you running?

[Cranky Old Coot]

14 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

How many HDDs and optical drives are you running?

Don't laugh, but a DVD and CD. And I have four platter drives. 

[IkeaGnome]

Just now, Cranky Old Coot said:

Don't laugh, but a DVD and CD. And I have four platter drives. 

This case will do what you want out of the box.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/wNrG3C/cooler-master-case-nse400kkn2

If you want one that looks a little more "modern" the Pop Air series in which ever size you want for a case are great cases. They won't fit 4 HDDs out of the box, but I have a stack of these I use at home. 

https://www.amazon.com/Phanteks-Stackable-Bracket-Cases-PH-HDDKT_03/dp/B07GY2B3WP/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=hard+drive+bracket&qid=1672083017&sr=8-4

Just hold them to the bottom of the case with some double sided tape is all I do. 

[Cranky Old Coot]

I will look into those. Thank you so much.

[IkeaGnome]

7 minutes ago, Cranky Old Coot said:

I will look into those. Thank you so much.

With any luck in the mean time someone else will come in with other suggestions. With those Phanteks brackets it opens up a lot of options for you. 5.25 bays are getting harder and harder to get in cases in general. 

[Cranky Old Coot]

On 12/26/2022 at 11:42 AM, IkeaGnome said:

With any luck in the mean time someone else will come in with other suggestions. With those Phanteks brackets it opens up a lot of options for you. 5.25 bays are getting harder and harder to get in cases in general. 

Indeed. I really like my optical drives, since I have so many CDs and DVDs. I took 25 years collecting them. I am a dinosaur. Kind of like the the floppy drive holdouts. Which i still have lots of, LOL

 

On topic, I might have to consider an external optical drive. I really need a case I can use all of the PCIE slots. Thank you once again.