Using a Thermaltake Armor for a file server case

[faxon]

for those of you who dont have this case, it comes with space for 6 HDDs in the form of a 3 drive rack up top in back by the PSU, and another rack for 3 more using this converter avalable from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811999141

the case is great i will admit, but it doesnt quite have the flare it used to compared to some of the new full tower cases. on the flip side though, most full tower cases dont support drive bays with their own dedicated 120mm fans for air flow, which is quite appealing to me in a file server. The system in this case is currently the one i use for my main rig at home, which sees some light gaming and a lot of browsing and home media viewing, but is not currently fast enough for my media editing, ripping, and transcoding needs. what i am planning on doing is migrating most of my storage hard drives to this system and buying more as needed, eventually upgrading to 12HDDs in total via software RAID add on cards. what im curious to know is if anyone has done this with an armor case in the past, and how much heat a dozen drives generates with the 120mm fans. the case needs a new side door, and i can get one with a 250mm integrated fan in it which will help cooling significantly.

so, any issues that people have had with this kind of a setup, other than the mess of wires that 12HDDs will have, as far as cooling is concerned.

 

[heymrdj]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811129043

 

[faxon]

i was actually considering that case as my new full tower case for my main computer. i have a love for cases that are big, nice looking, and easy to work inside of, and the antec 1200 falls into that category. im quite set on using the armor case that i have though as a file server because of how easy it is to modify the front 5.25 bays to whatever else i need them to be, plus the fact that i already have 5 drives in it and it keeps everything running pretty well in its current form, without getting to loud when the drives are all spinning up (case rattling)

 

[Zepper]

Since you already have the Armor and that it would certainly handle about any type of rig, it makes sense to use it unless you can turn it for enough to buy something better. If your server was to be used in a business setting, I'd recommend something more physically secure (tamper-proof), but for personal use I can't see any problem. FYI: there are lots of drive cages that put four HDDs into the same space the iCage puts only three, plus most of them have some noise isolation (rubber bushings) which the iCage lacks. Check out C-M's latest cage for the Stacker or the Silverstone "Kublai Kage" (TM by me) which offers hot plug/swap capability at the lowest price out there (but needs a little modding to hold the fan mount in place on other than the Kublai cases).

.bh.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have a ThermalTake Armor (not the one with the big side fan, just the original model), and I also plan on turning it into a file-server. I purchased five Lian-Li EX-23 modules, which allow you to fit three 3.5" HDs in the space of two 5.25" bays. So that gives me the capability of 15 HDs. I also purchased four PNY S-Cure 5-port PCI hardware RAID cards at NewEgg.com (one is a spare). I'm going to use a full-size ATX mobo with plenty of PCI slots (a Conroe865PE). I haven't built the rig yet so I can't tell you about the heat/noise. I have a 550W SuperFlower PSU that I am going to use to power the rig, it has 10 molex connectors, and I have eight molex-to-dual-SATA power adaptors. I also have a gigabit network card in PCI. Granted, this entire rig is going to be limited by the speed of the PCI bus, but it should allow me 12TB of storage when populated by 15 1TB HDs. I don't know the drive size limit of those S-Cure controllers yet, so that might still be an issue. I'm starting with five 500GB HDs that I ordered recently from Dell SB for $60 ea.

EX-23

PNY S-Cure 5-port

 

[Zepper]

The Lian Li cages also may have some fit problems in other than LL cases. I've had the EX-34 here. On some cases it will stick out a biit, on others, the cage bezel may have width or height problems, but you don't have to use the bezel.

.bh.

 

[mooseracing]

I've been using teh armor for 3 or 4 years now as a server/workstation. I have dual DVD burners and 8 Hotswap SATA drives setup using a Perc 5. The case is also supporting a Tyan S2877 with Dual Opteron 880's. It is a great case, sometimes I wish I had another exhaust fan on the rear. I like the stacker 1200 because of dual rear 120mm fans but the PSU is on the bottom. I'm also debating on an Intel Server Chassis case or Supermicro as they have more dedicated fans.