Case with lots of 2.5 external drive bays

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
You're probably not going to find one with 2.5" drive bays, but rather 3.5" drive bays, which will probably fit the 2.5" drives without any problems. Although, these are normally cases designed for servers and are typically rack-mounted and expensive.

I've been looking for something with a sizeable number of 3.5" hot-swap drive bays with ATX support and proper cooling for the drives. Silverstone's DS380 is close, but it only supports Mini-ITX, and I wouldn't mind more than 8 hot swap bays since I like leaving space between drives.
 
Mar 17, 2014
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The "most" I ever saw was 5-6 2.5" bays. However, I have seen cases with 10 3.5" bays. You could buy a $5 rack so a 2.5" Hard Drive can fit in a 3.5" bay.
 

mv2devnull

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2010
1,519
154
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Quick websearch says:
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Lian Li PC-A79 is a (big) tower with 12 external 5.25" drive bays.
Thermaltake MAX-1542 fits four 2.5" hotswap bays into one 5.25" bay.
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Theoretical total: 48 drives
 

Carson Dyle

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2012
8,173
524
126
Quick websearch says:
-------------------
Lian Li PC-A79 is a (big) tower with 12 external 5.25" drive bays.
Thermaltake MAX-1542 fits four 2.5" hotswap bays into one 5.25" bay.
===============
Theoretical total: 48 drives

There are a number of 6 x 2.5" cages that fit into a 5.25" bay, most designed to work with drives up to 9.5mm thick.

item1.jpg


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998144

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817994147
 
Last edited:
Feb 25, 2011
16,983
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There are a number of 6 x 2.5" cages that fit into a 5.25" bay, designed to work with drives up to 7mm thick.

item1.jpg

Yeah, but there are a lot of 9mm drives out there.

Not to mention the 15mm server drives. 2TB x4 > 1TB x6.

Personally I'd rather have support for the thicker drives. Unless I were specifically building for SSDs in mind.