Something to fill last two 5.25 bays?

[Okjoek]

I've got 4 external drive bays, 3 of them are 5.25'' with the last one being 3.5''. The thing that bothers me the most with having an ATX tower as far as aesthetics are concerned is just how much space isn't being used by anything. I'm trying to correct that.

 

I found an old Disk drive for one of the 5.25'' bays.

 

For the 3.5'' bay I've got this in my shopping cart:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071WPX4GB/?coliid=I3T5TS7N6GX9HT&colid=1CD5KOVWPNMYG&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

That just leaves two more 5.25'' bays...

 

• I thought about front panel speakers, but they all seem really bad, even by my minimalist standards. This one was the best I could find and it would provide a mounting spot for 3.5/2.5'' drives, the speaker itself needs to snake its wire all the way out the back of the case to plug into the rear audio jack. What even?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IUAYGZ6?pf_rd_p=d1f45e03-8b73-4c9a-9beb-4819111bef9a&pf_rd_r=WANY1FMS6YVQN4WX1B5C

 

• Another cool idea is a "dual bay" 80mm fan mount like this one that also offers 3x 3.5'' drive mounts. Considering my case only has a single front 120mm fan and a single 140mm exhaust this could be a nice option.

https://www.amazon.com/EverCool-Dual-Drive-Triple-Cooling/dp/B0032UUGF4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1534178928&sr=8-3&keywords=dual+5.25

 

What other cool ideas are there?

 

[TetraSky]

If you have spare hard drives, hotswap bays could be a good idea, especially if you want to do a quick backup of your OS drive/games/whatever else.

 

A fan controller is another thing you could get... If you care about that.

Watercooling stuff like a reservoir...

Or really just don't do anything.

[Inversion]

IIRC, Thermaltake do some pretty cool fan controllers for the 5.25" bay with touch sensitive fronts for controlling individual fans or all the connected fans. Been a while since I looked at that though. Other than that maybe some hotswap hard drive bays? Or a blu ray drive?

[ARikozuM]

3.5" and 2x2.5" hot-swap bay?

https://www.amazon.com/Syba-SY-MRA55006-Mobile-Extra-Black/dp/B00834SJ8K/ref=pd_sim_147_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00834SJ8K&pd_rd_r=4S1WA7E735YYWHTWRDSZ&pd_rd_w=IsqNt&pd_rd_wg=GK1Mc&psc=1&refRID=4S1WA7E735YYWHTWRDSZ

 

Still trying to find the one by Icy Dock or StarTech, but I can't find it.

[Okjoek]

18 hours ago, TetraSky said:

If you have spare hard drives, hotswap bays could be a good idea, especially if you want to do a quick backup of your OS drive/games/whatever else.

 

A fan controller is another thing you could get... If you care about that.

Watercooling stuff like a reservoir...

Or really just don't do anything.

 

18 hours ago, Inversion said:

IIRC, Thermaltake do some pretty cool fan controllers for the 5.25" bay with touch sensitive fronts for controlling individual fans or all the connected fans. Been a while since I looked at that though. Other than that maybe some hotswap hard drive bays? Or a blu ray drive?

So how do fan controllers work exactly? I don't think I need them because I don't overclock and I just leave all my fans plugged into their pins on the motherboard. I wouldn't be able to make them go any faster like that would I?

[TetraSky]

6 hours ago, Okjoek said:

 

So how do fan controllers work exactly? I don't think I need them because I don't overclock and I just leave all my fans plugged into their pins on the motherboard. I wouldn't be able to make them go any faster like that would I?

AFAIK, they basically work by increasing or decreasing the power sent to a fan that's plugged onto it at the turn of a dial, resulting in a faster/slower fan rotation.

Some fans can certainly rotate faster if given the power to do so, but may lead to an early death.

I don't think an inexpensive consumer fan controller will let you go above 100% power, so no risk of damaging anything.

They are basically for people who want to lower the noise of their computers while idling/web surfing and increase it when gaming for better temperatures.