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ATX case w/o drive bays?

paperfist

paperfist

Diamond Member
I'm looking for the smallest case I can find with a big fan or 2 to cram my ATX board into.

I would have thought by now with infusion of m.2 'on a stick' drives and a general lack of need for optical drives that cases with less and less drive bays would be readily available.

I haven't found too many though. There's a lot of other form factors like mATX or ITX that have such cases.

Anyone know of the type of cases I'm looking for?
 
the joke is that nobody who is looking to do a new build is seriously considering hard disks as a valid storage system. i don't even know WHY case manufacturers feel we need 3~5 full size racks; we don't 1/3 of the case at all, and that should be converted fully to cooling exclusively. We're really gonna have to get to the point where people do not know what a HDD is, before companies like Fractal Design realize we don't need those bays.
 
DigDog said:
the joke is that nobody who is looking to do a new build is seriously considering hard disks as a valid storage system. i don't even know WHY case manufacturers feel we need 3~5 full size racks; we don't 1/3 of the case at all, and that should be converted fully to cooling exclusively. We're really gonna have to get to the point where people do not know what a HDD is, before companies like Fractal Design realize we don't need those bays.
Click to expand...

wrong, hdd are used all the time, and will for any large storage needs
and some people may even want a front drive bay for an optical, or extra ports of some sort.
everyone has diff needs
 
that's a very roundabout way to say 99% of users know how to build a system, and 1% don't. That 0.003% that actually uses enterprise storage doesn't count as we're talking about consumer-level cases. And if you *are* a consumer and you think you need 3 Tb of slow-ass storage, then you need to stop hoarding data.
 
DigDog said:
that's a very roundabout way to say 99% of users know how to build a system, and 1% don't. That 0.003% that actually uses enterprise storage doesn't count as we're talking about consumer-level cases. And if you *are* a consumer and you think you need 3 Tb of slow-ass storage, then you need to stop hoarding data.
Click to expand...

consumer level would use a spinner faster than enterprice
its cheaper
many people dont want to spend the money for an ssd

the you have the average user that puts a small (256gb or 500gb) ssd as primary and a larger data drive in

very common build


assuming everyon puts in a large m.2 ssd is well, wrong
 
DigDog said:
the joke is that nobody who is looking to do a new build is seriously considering hard disks as a valid storage system. i don't even know WHY case manufacturers feel we need 3~5 full size racks; we don't 1/3 of the case at all, and that should be converted fully to cooling exclusively. We're really gonna have to get to the point where people do not know what a HDD is, before companies like Fractal Design realize we don't need those bays.
Click to expand...

Ah I thought you were making fun of my HD abbreviation 😀

Yeah most of these cases are enormous! My last ATX had 3 opticals in it and 6 3.5 drive bays of which 1 was used. So 50% of the case is dead space.
 
SilverStone Fortress FT05 might be an option. As per usual with these cases they are cramped, but I was a huge fan of the 90 degree layout on my FT02.
 
DigDog said:
that's a very roundabout way to say 99% of users know how to build a system, and 1% don't. That 0.003% that actually uses enterprise storage doesn't count as we're talking about consumer-level cases. And if you *are* a consumer and you think you need 3 Tb of slow-ass storage, then you need to stop hoarding data.
Click to expand...
Well, on one hand, my housemate has ~1TB just of photographs she's taken.

OTOH, I think you've got cause and effect backwards. If you make a case big enough to hold an ATX motherboard and wide enough for a tower cooler, and leave enough empty space for water cooling or radiators, you might as well put some dimples and screw holes in the sheet metal and make drive bays. It costs you basically nothing and puts a nice check mark on the feature sheet.
 
Thanks for the help everyone!

Not really anything I like. It would be nice if I could put something behind or under my triple monitor setup and since I don't see anything like that I'm going to try building something myself 😀 with these: http://www.tslots.com/
 
dave_the_nerd said:
Well, on one hand, my housemate has ~1TB just of photographs she's taken.

OTOH, I think you've got cause and effect backwards. If you make a case big enough to hold an ATX motherboard and wide enough for a tower cooler, and leave enough empty space for water cooling or radiators, you might as well put some dimples and screw holes in the sheet metal and make drive bays. It costs you basically nothing and puts a nice check mark on the feature sheet.
Click to expand...

two answers there;

B) drive bays take space. Space which means the chassis must be wider. The vast majority of builds that i see - that i have seen for a few years - have the right side either completely empty, or filled with empty drive bays.
A) i don't disagree with you here, but i do get upset that case manufacturers want to build every case for every purpose. How about we get a case that does NOT support one or the other solution.

i'm not calling for the total extinction of drive bays, but just to have the option to buy a case that fits a ATX mobo but that does not support that one feature.
 
My latest gaming build has 3 x 2.5" SSDs so I would still want a case with around 4 SSD bays, but they should be slotted on edge and add at most 3/4" to the case depth front-to-back instead of over 4 1/4".
 
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