I have been planning on a new home file server for a while now and couldn’t find a simple thin-ITX case that would fit a single 3.5" HDD as well as a 2.5" SSD. I know it’s a strange use case so I accepted the fact that I’d need to modify something or build my own.
Looking around the garage a month or so ago, I remembered that I had some 20ga 304 SS sheet metal, left over from another project. I wasn’t in a rush to get the new computer up and running, so I decided to try my hand at fabricating a case. I planned out in my head what I wanted and began the act of hacking up various pieces and pop-riveting things together.
Without a sheet metal shear or brake for the bends, the end result severely lacks in dimensional accuracy. Using all hand tools and armed with zero sheet metal fabricarion experience besides brackets or other unimportant things, this case won’t win me any awards on fine craftsmanship but I’m happy with how it turned out.
Since it doesn’t take much horsepower to run a file server, the older specs of this system won’t be an issue and all the components were not being used, so win:win.
- Motherboard: Intel DQ77KB thin-ITX w/ (partially) integrated PSU and dual gigabit NIC
- CPU: i5-3470, 4-core, 4-thread boosts to 3.6
- RAM: 2x8GB 2,400 Mhz DDR3-sodimms
- Storage: 5TB WD 3.5" sata HDD and 240GB Samsung 2.5" sata SSD
