Best 4U case?

[ChrisIsBored]

I'm looking for a good sized case and a 4U might have to do because of the added room around the motherboard..

Anyone know of any good 4U cases that can hold at least 5 SCSI hdd's with proper cooling on them? Either added fans in the case or capable of allowing me to add hd cooling fans with an open front?

 

[Athlex]

I used to work near Casetronic Engineering in Fremont and ended up buying several 4U cases. They have a wide selection, but I ended up going with this one. It has good cooling, a fan alarm, ATX or SBC backplanes, card locks, and a very cool bezel. I built about a dozen machines using these cases and was also very happy with the support they have.


Looks like it'd also work fine for your SCSI drives. The entire front of the case is vented so you'll be able to fit it all with a combination of internal bays (120mm fan) and 5.25" drive holders.

edit- can't splel

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Not too shabby... since you've had experience with this case.. let me ask you a quick question...

pic1
pic2

On the left side of pic1, (right for pic2) there's something obstructing the way.. Can't really tell from the picture but was that something actually on the case or is that area really just empty and in the pic to show what it looked like filled up or something?

It looks like there's a big fan there in pic1 but i'm not sure what that is in pic2... (i'm assuming hdd's)

The only thing I don't like about it is the crossbar above the motherboard. Thanks for the site link, time to do some looking around.

 

[Athlex]

The 5.25" bay on the left side is open for use by a CD-ROM drive, etc. Below it is the 120mm fan which blows over the cards.
On the right side are 3 more 5.25" bays and a 3.5" bay for a floppy. The other two are in between where the hard disks can be mounted vertically.

The crossbar above the MB is removable if need be and I found that it doesn't really interfere much with installing or removing cards. It's a pretty slick design and is notched to accomodate PCI and ISA boards. The machines I built were loaded into 30U carts and trucked around to customer sites, so the extra shock protection was just one less thing to worry about.

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Ohh that's nice the crossbar is removable... does it just screw off? I've messed around with another 4U in the $300 price range and the bar wasn't really in the way that much, but I still didn't like it... unfortunately it was welded into the frame.

That's good to know though... thanks!

 

[Athlex]

Yep, it's screwed in. I forget if it's hinged on one side and screwed on the other or has screws on both sides, but you can get it out of the way if you need to.