I currently have a "Server" PC that among other things is a NAS for my network. I built this using a P180 mainly because of the available 3.5" bays + good airflow to house 1 system drive plus 4 data drives in RAID5. The other requirement was a case that is relatively quiet, or could be made so, which also played into my choice of the P180.

It is a couple of years old, and even two years ago, I was hoping to find a smaller setup. My ideal solution would have been SFF-sized, but support for 4 to 5 HDD's, with good airflow. There was nothing at the time, and nothing out there now that fits the bill, from what I can see.

I am right now thinking about something like the APEVIA X-QPACK plus a backplane for the 2 5" bays that allows me to put 3 drives there. The QPACK has two separate bays for 3.5" drives. So I can either go to 1 sys disk plus 3 disk RAID5, or if heat is no problem, keep my current setup and have the 4th RAID5 disk next to the system drive.

I will probably have to modify the backplane for a smaller fan, and I need to find out if the backplane will even fit length-wise in the QPACK. ...and if the PS on the QPACK is too noisy, I need to find a quieter PS, but it has to be the same size as the QPACK PS is "shallow", and a full size PS might interfere with the backplane.

Even this route is still not as easy as I would like!

Any recommendations on how to get to a PC that is SFF-ish in size, quiet, and can hold 4 to 5 3.5" drives, or on my possible solution above?

Thanks!



A couple of quick notes:
1. The backplane I am looking at is the SATA2131B from Athena Power (at Newegg).
2. I would not install either optical or floppy disks. I have a USB DVD that I would use for OS install.

I've been looking into this as well and couldn't really find something I liked. A lot of the mATX cases I found just didn't have enough external drive bays for the backplane I wanted. Out of the stuff I looked through the 2 solutions that I liked best are:
1. The Chenbro ES34069
2. The Norco DS-520G
(I would link to them, but this being my first post, the forums won't let me)

Both are a bit pricey compared to just a standard case, which is why I haven't purchased either. They are, however, nice and compact and fit a good number of drives. One nice thing about the Norco is it uses a 120mm fan, so you should be able to swap that out for a quieter one if needed.

The ASUS T3 Terminator Barebones are pretty quiet.


Plenty of room for 5 3.5" drives, though I would recommend getting creative regarding mounting. Also only has 4 SATA ports with one being external, but there's always PCI and PCIe slot for another controller. The included 250W power supply isn't horrible--standard ATX w/ 120mm fan. Makes a nice LAN party box except for the lack of overclocking. ASUS has a 3 year warranty on their bare bone systems.

Athena Power now has a back plane that puts 4 2.5" disks into 1 5.25" bay. Especially from a noise standpoint, that is interesting.

(For me, I would have to buy new 2.5" drives versus re-using my existing 3.5" drives, which makes this less of an option for me, but I thought I'd share!)

You could use an Antec 6500 or 6580 whichever you can find. It has the usual Antec cage for five drives and room for two 92mm intake fans for cooling as well as a side duct dor the CPU. Look it up.

I am using it with 6 drives with no problems at all. Cool and almost silent. Much better than Sonata.