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Hi all,

I'm struggling to find a modern PC case that supports a 5.25" drive—adding that filter drops PCPartPicker results from 2000+ to just a handful.

Has anyone done a DIY mount inside the case using existing fan mounts or similar? Are there any kits or brackets that adapt 120mm fan holes to hold a 5.25" drive? I’m fine accessing it from the side panel if needed.

I'd rather avoid the enclosure as I don't want the clutter on my desk. Unless anyone has a better idea of locating it?

Cheers,
Nick

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 24, 2025 11:04 pm

Hi all,

I'm struggling to find a modern PC case that supports a 5.25" drive—adding that filter drops PCPartPicker results from 2000+ to just a handful.

Has anyone done a DIY mount inside the case using existing fan mounts or similar? Are there any kits or brackets that adapt 120mm fan holes to hold a 5.25" drive? I’m fine accessing it from the side panel if needed.

I'd rather avoid the enclosure as I don't want the clutter on my desk. Unless anyone has a better idea of locating it?

Cheers,
Nick

I can recommend bequiet. This case has even 2 5,25" drive bays. This the one I got.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/937

Coopervid wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 11:15 am

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 24, 2025 11:04 pm

Hi all,

I'm struggling to find a modern PC case that supports a 5.25" drive—adding that filter drops PCPartPicker results from 2000+ to just a handful.

Has anyone done a DIY mount inside the case using existing fan mounts or similar? Are there any kits or brackets that adapt 120mm fan holes to hold a 5.25" drive? I’m fine accessing it from the side panel if needed.

I'd rather avoid the enclosure as I don't want the clutter on my desk. Unless anyone has a better idea of locating it?

Cheers,
Nick

I can recommend bequiet. This case has even 2 5,25" drive bays. This the one I got.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/937

Can those top two rectangular bits be used to move the top HDD up and have a longer GPU? I have a 300mm GPU and I also need room for four HDDs.

A friend of mine has his optical drive in an enclosure that sits on top of his case. That arrangement keeps things pretty tidy.

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 12:31 pm

Coopervid wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 11:15 am

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 24, 2025 11:04 pm

Hi all,

I'm struggling to find a modern PC case that supports a 5.25" drive—adding that filter drops PCPartPicker results from 2000+ to just a handful.

Has anyone done a DIY mount inside the case using existing fan mounts or similar? Are there any kits or brackets that adapt 120mm fan holes to hold a 5.25" drive? I’m fine accessing it from the side panel if needed.

I'd rather avoid the enclosure as I don't want the clutter on my desk. Unless anyone has a better idea of locating it?

Cheers,
Nick

I can recommend bequiet. This case has even 2 5,25" drive bays. This the one I got.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/937

Can those top two rectangular bits be used to move the top HDD up and have a longer GPU? I have a 300mm GPU and I also need room for four HDDs.

Get yourself a 5,25" adapter for 3,5" drives and put the 4th HDD in the second ODD bay.

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 24, 2025 11:04 pm

Are there any kits or brackets that adapt 120mm fan holes to hold a 5.25" drive? I’m fine accessing it from the side panel if needed.

I think this adaption is your best bet but I don't have a clue what orientation you're implying it would be in... vertical? Can you draw it? A 3D printer is handy, but aluminum flashing is also handy depending on the orientation. I assume you can get by with drilling a 4 or 5 screw holes.

Or, switch over to external everything and use external PCI-E. I have a single fan Geforce 3060 in the below but I'm going to have to use a PCI-E ribbon and go external for a 4080.

Fractal Design Define 7 has 5.25 bay glass side panel is available too if you want very nice case to build in

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... tower.html

talk about tight lol jesus

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 9:57 pm

talk about tight lol jesus

Billy's solution is expensive
4 HDDs are outdated
I have converted my 2 2TB internal to M2 and have them in the case and use USB external hard drives or bare hard drives via an USB-> to SATA adapter

I still think my solution is the best for the existing setup. Think about converting some to M2 SSD.

Coopervid wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 2:31 pm

Nick-P wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 12:31 pm

Coopervid wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 11:15 am

I can recommend bequiet. This case has even 2 5,25" drive bays. This the one I got.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/937

Can those top two rectangular bits be used to move the top HDD up and have a longer GPU? I have a 300mm GPU and I also need room for four HDDs.

Get yourself a 5,25" adapter for 3,5" drives and put the 4th HDD in the second ODD bay.

Ordered:



Now I can have 5 x HDD, a 5.25 ODD and still have room for full length GPU:



I only have 12TB so far. But I need a lot more room to grow.

Good choice! Think about converting smaller HDDs to M2 or SATA SSDs and then use those drives externally via the USB adapter.

I store everything on drives like that. Think about it.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09TYZCN61?lin ... de_DE&th=1

This was my first true enterprise drive:


https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/mq6 ... g07aca12te

• 2,500,000 MTTF

• 550 TB/year Workload Rating

• Helium Sealed

• Vibration Sensors

• 7,200 rpm

• 248 MiB/s

£225 (or €269 )

However, I'm thinking about starting with 3 x 16 TB in RAID5. This is why I need room to grow lol.

This depends largely on what are you doing and if you need speed. I don't. I just use these external drives for movies and the speed is OK. Lowest cost per TB.

I bought that drive before I understood redundancy, but even assuming a pessimistic 250,000-hour MTTF (10× worse than spec), dual-drive failure on the same day would statistically take over 22,000 years.

Even RAID5 (1 parity drive in a 3-drive setup) gives ~3,000 years MTTDL. That’s good enough for me. I’m going RAID.

Planning to start with 3×16TB in RAID 5 — giving me 32TB usable (2/3 capacity). Only one drive's worth is used for parity, even in large arrays (e.g., 8/9 usable on 9 drives).

Still researching how easily RAID arrays can be expanded — i.e., can I add drives later without rebuilding?

P.S
If I went with manufacturer spec, I'd be safe for 65,000 years.

RAID reliability calculator:
https://www.servethehome.com/raid-calcu ... tdl-model/