computer drive bay mod

i used the 5.25 inch drive bay to house 4 hard drives expanding the capacty of my computer to 1200 gigabytes.

Step 1: I knocked off the bottom drive chassis with a cold chisel

Comments

[Ceiling cat]

What on earth kind of case is that?! Rack-mount server? It's Awsome!

[belarson]

hi..
the case is a rackmount 4U EATX case..
they are also called a "Chassis"

[Ceiling cat]

I thought so. Looks like a pretty nice case. How much does one of those cost? Or was it from something else?

[wasup]

This is a good idea, you can buy adaptors that saves you having to mutate your case though. Ive done similar things to one of my setups, but used the empty space below the drive bays to put extra drives, then later on decided more drives were needed and found space for more drives again! 10 drives in a mini tower case is fairly impressive, although there is enough room for more.

[morgenlandfahrer]

Wasup, that looks pretty cool and is exactly what I am looking for. I got an old Dell Dimension 1100 with a total of one drive bay and want to put in 5 - 6 more drives. Looks like your minitower is very similar. How did you build the drive bays? Can you put togeter a brief instructable or post a few more pictures?

[mattccc]

what are the specs of your computer

[capridrifter]

Very nice work!, You should clean up the holes you drilled with a file or sandpaper then paint the inside of your computer black or whatever color you choose, Then figure out a way to get a fan to cool those drives. 5 out of 5 stars!

[albylovesscience]

lol you have a yoga cd on your bed

[arikyeo]

you cpuld just buy those 3.5-5.25 adapters for less than a $

[abadfart]

u should try water cooling

[belarson]

i was considering using liquid metal like a Bismuth alloy instead of water. ironic though that i can get one terabyte in nearly one single drive.

[nitrox027]

i have 4 1.5tb drives thats like what 6tb lol

[MJTH]

Itd suck if you got a virus on all of them.

[punkatsub]

wow, my computer could have over 4tbs of memory, i feel happy about my computer now.

[RelyNupon]

lol i could have 11 tb in mine

[punkatsub]

really, all in the case?, because i have a case called an apollo nzxt which has a massive amount of room, enough for probably 5 different hdds, so yeah

[gamer]

wouldnt the fact that u put so much memory inside your computer slow it down to a poind where you want to kick the poor pc? anyways someone answer cause i wanna do this but im not so sure...

[CyberBill]

Adding more hard drive space to your computer wont slow it down at all...

[killerjackalope]

nice job are 2 slaves or is it split channels Btw stick fans blowing out through the bay covers for extra toasty feet... airflow though also your second cd drive (burner I guess) looks like wood effect in photo is it?

[Yerboogieman]

open the bay doors HAL

[binnie]

i wish i had ur computer mine is soo bland. but i shall be making a new rackmount system and stuff so ill own u lol

[binnie]

ohhh that is rackmoutnable :(

[brettkun]

I think I missed something here. How do you connect more than 4 harddrives to 2 IDE connectors? Your mobo supports 10 drives?

[Myself]

You can get PCI cards that add ATA channels, and some motherboards come with more than 2 onboard channels. My interface-mania box has 4 onboard channels, for a total of 8 drives, plus the SCSI mess that hangs off the back... leevonk, putting hard drives atop your monitor is a good way to lose data. You know that "BONK" sound the monitor makes when you turn it on? That's the degaussing coil, which demagnetizes the shadow mask to prevent color fringes. Imagine what it does to other magnetic media in the immediate vicinity...

[leevonk]

I said computer, not monitor. Even if your monitor is near the computer tower, if you have a flatscreen it's ok. People following your instructable will definately end up with a prettier solution though :)

[brettkun]

I think I missed something here. How do you connect more than 4 harddrives to 2 IDE connectors? Your mobo supports 10 drives?

[leevonk]

I would have just put the extra hard drives on top of the computer and snaked the cables out :)

[fuego316]

one question is how do u keep all the drives from overheating??? doesnt the addition of drives disrupt internal airflow as well as generating more heat???

[belarson]

there is a 5/8th ingh gap between each drive and the metal chassis i connected them to makes a great heat sink. if i place the hard drives right next to each other, i could actually fit anither 2 hard drives in the chassis, but i forgo that option as you pointed out, "how do i keep the drives cool" so instead i just opted to place four in the space ans the air gap between the drives is suficient for proper cooling. then when i add fans, the cooling will be a lot more efficient.

[wasup]

I put 2 80mm fans infront of the stack of drives in my rig. Dont need alot of airflow to keep evrything running cool.

[mikesty]

Way cool my friend, way cool. Dugg this up :) Only particularly useful if you have a similar chassis but a very bright idea inded :)

[belarson]

way cool! although, my case is a 4u rack mount chassis. the most drives i can place in it (along with a dvd burner and high speed cd-rom is 6. 4 in the bay and 2 in the hard drive space) I intend to place cooling fans on the front to help with cooling.