nizo's Journal: I just want a simple computer case

Here is what I want (Yeah I figure I will need to build my own case if I really want something like this):

- ATX case (since I have several ATX motherboards sitting around)
- It should fit in the lower part of my current entertainment center (and thus a desktop configuration rather than a tower might be best) Current rackmount case I have is too big
- Don't bother with drive bays of any kind, since everything (disks, DVD drive) will be external. Hell I may even make the power supply external, or park it over the pci/agp slots (see below)
- Since there are no more drive bays, move the power switch to the back of the case, which is now the front of the case, with some kind of door to cover everything (with a hole or holes for all the cables).
- I also don't care if the pci/agp slots are useable, since the motherboards have everything built in anyway.

Issues to address:
- Heat (though less of a problem than usual since the drives are external)
- Static electricity
- Must be cheap, or I might as well buy a small form factor box (which I may end up doing anyway)

The "everything external" thing stems from the fact that I hate having disk space and DVD burners localized to a single machine. It would be spiffy to be able to just move disks/DVD burners around to different machines without having to open up the machines. Being able to move a DVD burner while the machines are up would be nice too.

Hmm, the external is the hard one

[WillAffleckUW]

unless you mean, by external, not built into the motherboard.

Re:

[nizo]

I am hoping to have a computer case with CPU/Memory/Video/Network and not much else in it, assuming that I will plug disks, DVD drives, etc as external devices. A media PC might be the way to go eventually, but for now after measuring the space I have I may be able to get away with using my spare PC (a tower). Heat may be an issue though.....

Re:

[rholliday]

Why not just use network-attached storage? You'd probably want to have an HDD in (or connected to) each server for a boot OS (unless you felt like setting up a SAN), but all your data could be on network drives and save you moving the drives around at all. As for DVD burners and whatnot you could always share the drive attached to one machine over the network, or set up your own network-attached peripheral [linuxjournal.com].

Of course, I'm assuming you're going to have these machines on the network. :)