Building With The R5
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The R5’s hard drive trays are designed to place 2.5” and 3.5” drive interfaces identically, which would be great for matching up with backplane connectors. Unfortunately, the R5 doesn't include a backplane, though it still requires that you remove a 3.5”-drive-locating pin to install storage in a 2.5" form factor. That pin pushes out with moderate force, so it's not much of an inconvenience.
Two sets of holes allow 2.5” drives to face towards either side of the tray. I chose to have the connectors pointing right, making it easier to hide cables.
Rosewill’s R5 chassis so closely resembles Corsair’s Obsidian 550D that it even has the same SATA cable clearance issue. Owners of 10.5”-wide motherboards beware!
Sticking to standard-sized parts gets us a pretty standard-looking installation. Knobs on the optical drive bays twist to retract or extend locking pins, while screws secure the motherboard and cards.
The finished build looks dark and mysterious. It even includes a mystery door to nowhere in its faux 3.5” bay cover.
