Case suggestions for a small home server?

[VivienM]

I'm thinking about building a new server for home use, and I'm having trouble finding a suitable case.

First two criteria:
- must be affordable
- must be available in Canada, ideally in a local store... (sadly, no Newegg with their Newegg-low shipping rates around here)

Now here's where this get tricky... I also want
- something as physically small as possible (the boards I'm looking at are mATX, anyways)
- as much room as possible for drives (3-4 3.5" drives would be nice, along with a bay for an ODD)

I was looking at Antec's Minuet 350, but it can't take many drives and I'm worried that the low-profile expansion slots might be a problem down the road. mATX minitowers like the NSK3480 have ridiculously few drive bays (why isn't it possible to line the front with 3.5" bays?).

So I'm thinking I have to go to something full ATX like Antec's NSK4480. Or are there other options I'm not finding?

 

[ChefJoe]

Something like this ? http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811173013

 

[VivienM]

That doesn't seem bad... assuming it's widely available around here, which it doesn't seem to be...

But yes, that's definitely the type of thing I'm thinking about.

 

[VivienM]

There's the Silverstone TJ08, too, it seems, but it's expensive... (OTOH, I can recycle a Seasonic PSU...)

 

[ChefJoe]

I think the real issue is that most really small cases don't provide plenty of 3.5" bays with active cooling. My experience has been that slots filled with drives but no fans blowing over them = hard drives dead in a few years.

I'd just go for something like an Antec 900 or Cooler Master Elite with a 120 mm fan added to the front . http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811119118

Then again, if you can pick up a spare hard drive cage plenty of the mATX towers could be modded to hold another cage.
http://www.directron.com/stb3t4e1.html http://www.directron.com/a2309.html http://www.antec.com/Detail.bok?no=249 http://www.antec.com/Detail.bok?no=503

 

[DerwenArtos12]

How about the Lian Li G50, it can hold three actively cooled hard drivesand is pretty small with quite good cooling for it's size. There are tons of derivatives of that chassis by Ll, like the PC-A59. There's also the Lian Li PC-A05 I don't remember if it has a fan in the hard drive bay of not but, it has excellent cooling and is VERY tiny for a full ATX case. They're all fairly expensive to be honest though. The cooler master elite 330 or 340 would be a good lower budget option with a fan added to the front.