This is a project/build log for a custom case to house both a storage server and gaming rig. 

This fairly compact case is designed to hold:
 

• Two EATX motherboards
• Two ATX PSUs
• Twenty four 3.5-inch hard drives
• Six SSDs
• Two 120x3 water cooling radiators

The size of the case is to be kept as small as possible, which is mostly driven by the size of the motherboard trays.  But until those arrive, I fabricated the PSU mounting plate from some 2.5mm aluminum sheet.

The cutouts were made via a hand held router fitted with a flush pattern bit, guided by a template.










That's it for now!

Wow nice. Can not wait to see this thing finished. What program do you use to make the drawings?

The backplate of the stock motherboard tray from mountainmods.com was too tall, so I fabricated a shortened duplicate out of .10-inch thick aluminum sheet (once again, via my trusty router fitted with a pattern cutting bit):

Spotswood

This is a project/build log for a custom case to house both a storage server and gaming rig. 

This fairly compact case is designed to hold:

• Two EATX motherboards
• Two ATX PSUs
• Twenty four 3.5-inch hard drives
• Six SSDs
• Two 120x3 water cooling radiators

Going to install car engine mounts to move the thing lol?  But seriously I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

Nice work , looks great.

Wow, can't wait to see it finished.

The posts for the front frame are made from .125 x .5 x 2-inch tubes.  First thing was to stuff the bottoms with the screw blocks/nuts in order to eventually attach them to the bottom sheet.  
Following standard operating procedure, the aluminum was cut on my miter saw (fitted with a standard carbide tipped blade).  The clamp that came with the saw is used to hold the material against the fence.


The blocks were then drilled on the drill press with the assistance of my self-centering vice (I love that thing because I don't have to waste time measuring for center).


Threads were tapped via my bench mounted "hand" tapper.


The blocks were pinned to the tubes with flat head self-tapping screws.


Always looking to improve my speed and quality, the cross supports offered the opportunity to use PEM cinch nuts.  The nuts were pressed into the screw blocks.

Which were then pinned inside .5 x 1-inch u-channel.

I spent the day correcting a big mistake, which was I relied on the incorrect posted dimensions of the Swiftech MCR320-DRIVE 3x120 radiator, and thus the case wasn't wide enough by 16mm.  (Swiftech has since  corrected the diagram on their website).


Actually, the case was exactly the width of the rads, but that might have resulted in some pump vibration getting transferred to the side panels.  So the case had to be widened by one inch.

To speedup the process of pinning the bolt blocks to the u-channel I switched to using split pins.







I also had to re-cut the back sheet.


Altogether, it only took me about a third of the original amount of time.  Phew!

very nice cannot wait to see this finished.

looking good! Always wanted to build a custom case but, I definitely don't have the skills....

Looking great as always!!!!

Santoprene rubber/plastic tubing was slipped over 1/4-inch threaded rods to form a "cage" to contain the HDs.


Here's why the routed slots are superior to individual holes.

amazing milling you do,
 
superb job cant wait to see the end product

very nice 

I finished the bottom of the HD cage by adding four support beams made from 1x.5-inch u-channels. 



To further dampen vibrations some 1x.25-inch soft foam will be stuck between the beams and the perforated aluminum.