Case with a lot of 5.25" expansion?

[Bismut]

Hello good people of the internet,

 

I am considering a new case, if it fulfills my specific requirements that is. (TL;DR down below)
I want to be able to run a standart ATX PSU and Motherboard and have as many 5.25" bays as possible for flexibility when it comes to expansion (see) Here is the catch: I also the ability to mount a radiator behind the bays to have the case be somewhat reasonable in terms of size (I would buy a Define XL R2 otherwise, but 9 PCIe slots are a lot). I have a 240mm and a 280mm, one of which I would like to mount sorta like shown in this picture (Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Rev. B). I am indifferent to the amount of 3.5" and 2.5" expansion because adapters exist (again, see the video), and do not plan on running any GPU over 250W of thermal output with a massive cooler (think GTX 1080Ti for size at most), or any CPU sucking back more than 130W (so nothing above a 5950X at stock).
Does anyone here know of a case that fulfills those requirements? I am okay with buying used, as I know that 5.25" bays are pretty dead, unfortunately. Front I/O is not too important either, because 5.25" and I am okay with having the whole system be sorta janky (I already "convinced" my Define R5 to fit a 280mm rad in front); I do care about the rad being mounted properly.

 

TL;DR: The requirements, compiled into a list

• Standart ATX PSU and Motherboard
• As many 5.25" bays as possible
• Ability to mount a radiator behind the bays, either a 240mm or 280mm
• Not too huge of a case; ideally sorta mid-tower sized
• Indifferent to the amount of 3.5" and 2.5" expansion
• Do not plan on running any GPU "bigger" than a GTX 1080Ti or any CPU sucking back more than 130W.
• Okay with buying used
• Front I/O is not too important either, because 5.25"
• Some jankyness is welcome

 

And yes, I know that welders exist, but I do not have a shop or a lot of experience machining things.

[Kilrah]

45 minutes ago, Bismut said:

I also the ability to mount a radiator behind the bays

That's something you'll have to jank, with 5.25 AFAIK the length is not standardized plus the cables come out the back so you almost certainly won't find anyone making a case with a mount behind that. The case would need to be ridiculously long to account for "whatever length a specific derive could be" plus some margin for the cables, then the thickness of the rad...

 

Why not top-mount the radiator? 

 

In new cases all I could find with 5.25 that seemed decent when I looked a few months ago for my new build was the Thermaltake Versa H26 TG and that's what I went with. Pretty well designed, I have a 360mm at the top and it can fit a 240 in front. Only 2 bays tho.

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

That's something you'll have to jank, with 5.25 AFAIK the length is not standardized plus the cables come out the back so you almost certainly won't find anyone making a case with a mount behind that. The case would need to be ridiculously long to account for "whatever length a specific derive could be" plus some margin for the cables, then the thickness of the rad...

 

Why not top-mount the radiator? 

 

In new cases all I could find with 5.25 that seemed decent when I looked a few months ago for my new build was the Thermaltake Versa H26 TG and that's what I went with. Pretty well designed, I have a 360mm at the top and it can fit a 240 in front. Only 2 bays tho.

Yeah most cases with a lot of bays pre-date water cooling.  There is so little demand for them now, which is why the IcyDock bays are so expensive - you could probably buy a NAS case for the price of the drive bay alone.

 

Personally I have the SilverStone SST-CS381.

[Bismut]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

That's something you'll have to jank, with 5.25 AFAIK the length is not standardized plus the cables come out the back so you almost certainly won't find anyone making a case with a mount behind that.

Really? I always felt like CD/DVD/BluRay drives were sorta samey in terms of length, with everything else being shorter. I also have a bunch of right angle cables, so I am not too worried about that. Although those 3.5" enclosures might be extra long, that is true.

 

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Why not top-mount the radiator? 

Much like any flat surface, the top of my PC is being abused as a shelf. I also do not like the idea of having the top of my case fully exposed, since I do like to drink at my desk (water/soda, that is). Nothing has happened, ever, but...

 

6 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

In new cases all I could find with 5.25 that seemed decent when I looked a few months ago for my new build was the Thermaltake Versa H26 TG and that's what I went with. Pretty well designed, I have a 360mm at the top and it can fit a 240 in front. Only 2 bays tho.

Kinda feels like my "convinced" Define R5.

 

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Yeah the cases with a lot of bays likely all pre-date water cooling.  There is simply no demand for them now.

There is, the problem is that it is only from one person (me).

I just had the idea of finally learning CAD (at least sorta) and activating my 3D printer to mount the rad behind my HDDs. That would take me halway there (whooo-oooh) and I could just build the case I want at some point in The Future™

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Really? I always felt like CD/DVD/BluRay drives were sorta samey in terms of length, with everything else being shorter. I also have a bunch of right angle cables, so I am not too worried about that. Although those 3.5" enclosures might be extra long, that is true.

Depends on the age, newer drives like Bluray tend to be a lot shorter than CD drives used to be as the electronics got so much more integrated so the PCBs could be tiny.

The newer cases tend to be a tight fit with the shorter drives, although the 3.5" enclosures are going to be a lot shorter than a modern Bluray drive.

[Kilrah]

3 minutes ago, Bismut said:

I always felt like CD/DVD/BluRay drives were sorta samey in terms of length

Sorta samey yeah, but still 1-2cm difference is a lot if you have to plan for the worst case when designing a case. 

 

Example below from an old machine of mine, 3 drives, 3 different lengths.

 

 

[Bismut]

1 minute ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Depends on the age, newer drives like Bluray tend to be a lot shorter than CD drives used to be as the electronics got so much more integrated so the PCBs could be tiny.

Smaller would be better in this cases case.

 

5 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The newer cases tend to be a tight fit with the shorter drives, although the 3.5" enclosures are going to be a lot shorter than a modern Bluray drive.

The Icy Dock flexiDOCK MB830SP-B would be about 1cm longer than my current Bluray Drive, but it also has a fan on the back side and the cables can be omitted from the thickness because they should not stick out past the fan.

 

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Sorta samey yeah, but still 1-2cm difference is a lot if you have to plan for the worst case when designing a case. 

Eh, 3cm extra is not too bad I think. Although that is about the thickness of a fan nowadays, so ehhh

 

5 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

That is A LOT of cables, wow. Kinda reminds me of my system at times ^^

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Sorta samey yeah, but still 1-2cm difference is a lot if you have to plan for the worst case when designing a case. 

 

Example below from an old machine of mine, 3 drives, 3 different lengths.

 

 

Those are all short compared to older drives, I'm sure I still have one or two knocking around but have no clue where they are for a comparison.  

 

Thinking about it though, I think they became shorter just before the switch to SATA from IDE so its not really relevant, other than for curiosities sake for people who never saw them.

 

Still, it kinda blew my mind when laptop drives came out, they are so tiny in comparison.

[Bismut]

12 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Still, it kinda blew my mind when laptop drives came out, they are so tiny in comparison.

They are, especially the 9.5mm ones.

Also, I guess that this server chassis would be about what I am looking for, just with at least seven PCI expansion slots and space for at least 120mm fans in the middle. Nothing an angle grinder could not fix though, at least for the middle part.

[thrasher_565]

5.25 bays are rare and ya it has options to mount w/e you want in them they are basically dead. the smaller amount of them the more case you will find. normally from 1 to 5ish is about the norm. if you want it for hdd mount then a case with say 1 5.25 bay and a few hdd mount would be better. lots of hdd mount case are also rarer and tend to cost a bit like $300+ used market will be the best option ebay or local buy and sell. some case like the antec 1200 and probably 900 you can mount a rad to the front but most case back in the day that had lots of 5.25 dint have much for rad support thats were the drill comes in...

but you can get usb /cd/dvd drives and bigger hdd/ssd/m.2 so...

 

there also adding your own hdd mount too witch could be a option if your ok using a drill.

atm things will be out of stock and higher price and most likely keep rising...

 

Phanteks Enthoo Pro

Thermaltake Core V71

Thermaltake Tower 900 expandable hdd cadys (but they dont sell em...)

Thermaltake Core X71

Gamemax TitanSilent Case

GAMEMAX Full Tower Chassis

Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition no 5.25 expandable hdd cadys

Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 no 5.25 expandable hdd cadys

Thermaltake Core W200 expandable hdd cadys (but they dont sell em...)

Thermaltake Core W100 expandable hdd cadys (but they dont sell em...)

be quiet! Pure Base 600 expandable hdd cadys

Fractal Design Hard Drive Tray Kit – Type D for Pop Series

Fractal Design Hard Drive Cage kit - Type B

www.mountainmods.com

https://ldcooling.com/shop/

Phanteks Modular HDD Bracket Specific for Evolv ATX, Pro M

yasu7 3.5in HDD

anidees AI Crystal XL PRO

Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Gigantic

Rosewill Rise Glow if you can still find it?

 

 

Edited January 29 by thrasher_565

[Kilrah]

10 hours ago, Bismut said:

That is A LOT of cables, wow. Kinda reminds me of my system at times ^^

It's my old 2010 1st gen i7-970 that I keep around for testing things because it has all the interfaces you could think of spanning 20 years and can run every OS from that period, and I just threw almost everything I have in there. It's got a floppy drive, and use it to check IDE drives that go in older machines once in a while...

 

 

 

 

[Bismut]

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

lots of hdd mount case are also rarer and tend to cost a bit like $300+ used market will be the best option ebay or local buy and sell

I mean... if you want hard drives, a fractal XL R2 is the way to go, for only about 130€. You have at least right from the factory and can add cages to have even more.

 

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

but most case back in the day that had lots of 5.25 dint have much for rad support thats were the drill comes in...

Yeah, I am considering bending an old sheet of aluminium, drilling holes and riveting it into my existing Define R5 to have the radiator mounted behind the HDD cages. Not exactly what I wanted, but I could also look for one of those 120mm fan reservoirs, since I would want a 2x5.25" res, in addition to some hot swap bays, a cable passthrough and a bluray drive. And possibly more, but the flexibility is there.

 

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

Phanteks Enthoo Pro

Thermaltake Core V71

Thermaltake Tower 900 expandable hdd cadys (but they dont sell em...)

Thermaltake Core X71

Gamemax TitanSilent Case

GAMEMAX Full Tower Chassis

Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition no 5.25 expandable hdd cadys

Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 no 5.25 expandable hdd cadys

Thermaltake Core W200 expandable hdd cadys (but they dont sell em...)

Thermaltake Core W100 expandable hdd cadys (but they dont sell em...)

be quiet! Pure Base 600 expandable hdd cadys

Fractal Design Hard Drive Tray Kit – Type D for Pop Series

Fractal Design Hard Drive Cage kit - Type B

www.mountainmods.com

https://ldcooling.com/shop/

Phanteks Modular HDD Bracket Specific for Evolv ATX, Pro M

yasu7 3.5in HDD

anidees AI Crystal XL PRO

Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Gigantic

Rosewill Rise Glow if you can still find it?

Those are about what I have at the moment (A Fractal Design Define R5). I need 5.25" bays, HDDs can be adapted into those

[thrasher_565]

42 minutes ago, Bismut said:

I mean... if you want hard drives, a fractal XL R2 is the way to go, for only about 130€. You have at least right from the factory and can add cages to have even more.

 

Yeah, I am considering bending an old sheet of aluminium, drilling holes and riveting it into my existing Define R5 to have the radiator mounted behind the HDD cages. Not exactly what I wanted, but I could also look for one of those 120mm fan reservoirs, since I would want a 2x5.25" res, in addition to some hot swap bays, a cable passthrough and a bluray drive. And possibly more, but the flexibility is there.

 

Those are about what I have at the moment (A Fractal Design Define R5). I need 5.25" bays, HDDs can be adapted into those

they dont make cases with more 5.25bays then thows... so gl i guess.

[Bismut]

Just now, thrasher_565 said:

they dont make cases with more 5.25bays then thows... so gl i guess.

There are few, like the rare Antec 900 or some server chassis, like the Inter-Tech 3U-30255. That comes with some drawbacks of course, but I guess there is no silver bullet unless I build one myself.

[thrasher_565]

1 minute ago, Bismut said:

There are few, like the rare Antec 900 or some server chassis, like the Inter-Tech 3U-30255. That comes with some drawbacks of course, but I guess there is no silver bullet unless I build one myself.

Antec 900 is noy sold anymore as far as i no... could be wrong thow. but you can find em on ebay thow

[Bismut]

1 minute ago, thrasher_565 said:

Antec 900 is noy sold anymore as far as i no... could be wrong thow.

Yeah nah, I think it is used only by now. Would be really rad to have though, unless I just decide to go ham and build some solution myself.

 

[thrasher_565]

Just now, Bismut said:

Yeah nah, I think it is used only by now. Would be really rad to have though, unless I just decide to go ham and build some solution myself.

 

i no what your after i too was obsesed with 5.25bays back in the day. never got the stacker but all the case i owed have many bays.

Thermaltake Xaser III

Thermaltake Armor Jr

Xigmatek Elysium (

antec 1200

azza solano 1000

caselabs magnum th10

thermaltake core w200

thermaltake core x9

Thermaltake Core X71

thermaltake mozart tx

antec lan boy air

corsair obsidian 900d

red dell xps 720

 

 

[Bismut]

52 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

Thermaltake Xaser III

Thermaltake Armor Jr

Xigmatek Elysium (

antec 1200

azza solano 1000

caselabs magnum th10

thermaltake core w200

thermaltake core x9

Thermaltake Core X71

thermaltake mozart tx

antec lan boy air

I might start looking for one of those, thanks!