Smallest mITX case for 6x2.5" array

[Joel]

Hello all, title says it pretty well.

I currently have a Fractal Node 304 to house a mITX (Asrock E3C224D2I with Pentium G3220) with 6x3TB 3.5 inch drives, and I'm looking to upgrade my array to 6x 4TB (15mm high) 2.5 inch Seagate drives. I'd like a smaller enclosure but I'm not having much luck.

I'm aware that 4x2.5 -> 1x 5.25 drive bays exist that are 15mm compatible so that gets me part of the way. I don't need hotswap though it would be nice.

Any recommendations?

 

[Evan]

Cube or slim ?
Hot swap or fixed Bay ?

NCASE | M1 Use 3.5" places to mount 2 x 2.5"
https://www.supermicro.com.tw/products/chassis/tower/721/SC721TQ-250B Not sure about the fixed 2.5" locations but I could measure if your interested as I have one of these cases, of course use the 3,5" for 2.5"

 

[wiretap]

This is a pretty good option in a Shuttle Mini-DTX/Mini-ITX form factor and gives you (8) 2.5" hot swaps. 11.8 Liters
SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.- CS280

 

[Evan]

This is a pretty good option in a Shuttle Mini-DTX/Mini-ITX form factor and gives you (8) 2.5" hot swaps. 11.8 Liters
SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.- CS280

I got really excited about that as it looks like an amazing case but some reviews are saying since the from hotswap bays are not fan cooled they are seeing very high drive temps (granted with 4tb I assume 15mm thick drives so also not helping airflow but that's the ideal usecase)

 

[epicurean]

In Win CE Series
or
In Win BL Series

You can put 6 2.5" if you use a 4 x 2.5" in the 5.25 slot

 

[Joel]

This is a pretty good option in a Shuttle Mini-DTX/Mini-ITX form factor and gives you (8) 2.5" hot swaps. 11.8 Liters
SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.- CS280

Interesting. I knew about the 380 but this one could be promising. Since I'm running 6 drives I'd probably group them in twos with a gap in the third spot. I wonder if there's room to sneak a 120mm fan in there. Even if it couldn't intake/exhaust just getting some air moving over the drives could help.

 

[TType85]

Interesting. I knew about the 380 but this one could be promising. Since I'm running 6 drives I'd probably group them in twos with a gap in the third spot. I wonder if there's room to sneak a 120mm fan in there. Even if it couldn't intake/exhaust just getting some air moving over the drives could help.

i tried one of the cases and would say stay far away. My review is here:SilverStone SST-CS280B Case Storage - Newegg.com

There is no room for cooling behind the drive cage even with a small sfx psu. In my P4000m hotswap cage with good airflow the drives never saw more than 34c zeroing out 8 drives at one time. That 50c was under light load.

 

[Evan]

@TType85 your review was one I read... I can imagine it's ok with 9.5mm drives but I Guess the think 15mm leaves little room for any airflow, sad as the case looked very cool.

 

[TType85]

That's the problem, thee is NO airflow across the drives. There are 2 80mm fans below the cage that provides a bit of airflow to the motherboard.

 

[wiretap]

9.5mm drives with the front door removed from the case will provide reasonable temperatures, as posted in some reviews. Still, I'd like to see an actual table/graph of drive temperatures between SSD's, enterprise grade SSD's, HDD's, different thicknesses, etc. If I remember correctly from the massive Google hard drive temperature study, there were almost no differences in failure rates of their hard drives from 30-45C within the first 3 years of operation. But, this was only for spinning disks.

Edit: from the google study.. Even up to 40C, you're only at ~5% failure rates at 3 years. I would imagine that SSD's fair a little better than a spinning disk, especially enterprise grade SSD's that are rated for high endurance and temperatures.

Edit 2: JEDEC application class standards in JESD218 and 219 show for SSD's--
Client Class (consumer grade) --- rated for 40C @ 8hrs per day with <3% failure rates, UBER requirement of <1 sector in 10^15 bits read (1 unrecoverable error in 0.11PB)
Enterprise class --- rated for 55C @ 24hrs per day with <3% failure rates, UBER requirement of < 1 sector in 10^16 bits read (1 unrecoverable error in 1.11 PB)

So, it looks like if you're at or below 55C, you're in the clear with enterprise class SSD's per the design and test standards for environmental attributes.