Discussion Looking for case for APU + 1-2x 3.5" hot swap bays.

Thac0

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Nov 12, 2020
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I'm looking to build a small/portable system that can be used to recover hard drives and other forms of media on site. I want to use hot swap bays for drives to avoid issues with USB/eSATA. I'm sometime backing up multiple drives in a row, so external bays are strongly preferred. I did some searching but didn't come up with anything. Here's what I'm thinking:

<6L - A powerbrick is fine. (USB-PD input would be amazing)
1-2x 3.5 HDD hot swap bays. (2.5" drive compatible preferred).
Slim ODD - Just a bonus. I could use an external without issue.

I'm somewhat flexible on motherboard support. I'd like something that might be able to double as an emulator and a 4k media player, but I'm willing to give up those for a smaller case.

Thoughts or suggestions?
 

GuilleAcoustic

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Jun 29, 2015
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It's slightly bigger at 8.62L, but it has built-in PSU, 2x hotswap 3.5" and slim ODD: http://www.g-alantic.com.tw/Product_Detail.aspx?no=GA6702

They also have an 8.5L cube shapped one without ODD: http://www.g-alantic.com.tw/Application_detail.aspx?APP=Storage&no=GA6902

If all you need are 2.5" hotswap ... get the smallest ITX chassis with at least 1 PCI slot and get an hotswap caddy that mounts to a PCI bracket: https://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/1277

 
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