Hi Gents,

I'm not a case expert, so I need some advice. I currently have a home server, built in a Thermaltake Armor case. I'm currently using 3 of their iCage units to hold hard drives. Each iCage converts three 5 1/4" bays to three 3 1/2" bays, and has a 120mm fan in the front. The 3 iCage units are currently holding 8 hard drives.

I have a need for more hard drives in this server, but cases that hold more than about 8-9 drives get into the realm of enterprise-level server cases, costing upwards of $400-$700. I'd rather look for a less expensive solution.

I'd like to replace the iCage units with another kind of cage that would convert three 5 1/4" bays to four or five 3 1/2" bays. I found a nice looking one by Icy Dock, but I'm going to run into a problem. The Thermaltake case has a quick-insert/quick-release mechanism for the 5 1/4" devices, and to facilitate this, there are small metal flanges separating each 5 1/4" bay. The iCage has horizontal, front-to-back slots in the side of it to allow you to slide the iCage into the 3 bays (with the flanges going into the slots), and the flanges then hold in in place. The Icy Dock enclosure doesn't have any slots, so it's not going to slide into the 3 bays, the flanges will block it.

Does anyone know of a solution? Is there another enclosure with slots similar to the iCage that would mount more than 3 HDs in the three 5 1/4" slots? Should I just use a dremmel tool or jigsaw and cut off the flanges so that the Icy Dock enclosures would mount? I have a friend who has a machine shop (drill press/small milling machine, etc.), should I just have him make three custom metal cubes that would mount the drives (difficult)?