Any Cases With Front-Facing Expansion Slots?

owenferguson asks: "I'm sick and bloody tired of futzing around with ports (USB, sound, video, firewire, serial) that come out of the back of my mid-tower case. Does anyone know of a case that allows you to mount the motherboard 'backwards,' that is, with the expansion slots and various ports situated beneath the drive bays, facing foreward? I'm planning to build one myself, but if there's one already on the market, I'll probably just buy it."

Comments

Yes and no

[itwerx]

Dunno 'bout cases (rather doubt there's sufficient market), but you could have an expansion chassis facing forward easily enough to get the cards around.
Or, cheaper but more difficult (due to having to do your own cabling) you could use an external drive chassis the same way.

Another solution

[tunah]

Just put the stupid case backwards!

BTW, does anyone know of a case that allows you to mount cd drives, floppy drives etc on the back of the machine?

Patch panels...

[Howie]

Depending on how many free drive bays you have, there are certainly drive bay mounting panels to present most of the common things you'd want to plug and unplug regularly - audio, USB, 1394 and serial.

An external one (intended for laptops, but what the heck) is made by Mobility Electronics. There was an internal one featured on Scan's Today Only page the other day, with temperature monitoring and all sorts - I'm pretty sure it was made by ASUS, although I can't find it on their site.

I've seen several cases with front panels like this, too. Even my gf's cruddy e-machines PC does that. Coolmaster case with front USB (and optional 1394 IIRC).

Extension Cables

[HeeG]

Just buy some extension cables approx 50cm you will need high quality cables for Firewire / USB / LAN and Video if running at a high res. This will also releve "wear and tear" on the ports.

Options...

[ArcticChicken]

These guys were mentioned in a previous AskSlashdot article. Looks kinda neat, doesn't it?

Another simpler option (USB only) can be found at Antec's site.

Re:Just a thought...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Then your various removable media drives are facing the wrong direction.

Not exactly, but...

[ThatComputerGuy]

there are plenty of cases like this one at Colorcase.

It has both USB and speaker/mic ports on the front. I have bought some of these cases before and am very satisfied. Just use the supplied cable extensions, and you're ready to go.

$20 solution

[phillymjs]

CyberGuys carries this, which will take up a drive bay and an expansion slot, but gives you front-panel connections for FireWire, game, headphone out, speaker out, microphone, and two USB connectors, plus volume control. Seems kinda like a kludgey solution to me, but it will do what you're looking for.

~Philly

Re:$20 solution

[gmhowell]

Actually, it doesn't even have to take
up an explansion slot per se. It will take a
slot from the case, but if there are more slots
on the case than the mobo, then you plunk it in
one of those slots, that has nothing behind it.

I'm looking at two two-year old cases (ATX) and
neither has an extra slot, but there are several
cases at work like this (I think they are AT
style cases). The white box shops tended to stuff
parallel ports and serial ports in 'em. But, you
can mount those into knockouts rather easily.

I got tired of this, too...

[cr0sh]

My solution?

I got a six foot folding table (they make larger ones if you need it), put it in the middle of the room, and put my computers underneath it. That way, if I need to change connections, etc - I just go around to the back and fiddle with them. No more dragging machines out, etc.

To get power to the machines, I ran an extension cord along the ceiling, then down to the desk, and wrapped it with split loom tubing. Same for network connections, etc. You can also run the cords along the floor, and use those rubber floor cover thingies. Ideally, you would have a raised floor - I might do that next time.

So far, it has worked great for me, much better than the desk I had!

Re:I got tired of this, too...

[dr00g911]

Precisely my solution.

From the early-90's beginnings of DV editing, I realized that I was going behind my workstations/beta decks/etc. at least twice a day... and up against a wall, that just lags.

My solution was to simply face the desk outward from the wall, or (more usually) set the desk two feet from the wall to allow walking space.

Helps a bit with heat dispersal from montiors and the like as well, FWIW.

--dr00g

Re:Just a thought...

[SuiteSisterMary]

At that point, why not use an external breakout box? There's lots that fit in a standard drive bay. Besides, I've got a DVD-ROM and a CD-RW drive. Start getting those external, and it starts to get a bit expensive, as well as easier to knock over when the kids are running around.

Ridge Spin Server cases

[thogard]

I've got three of these. They are rack mount to help keep thing neat but you could put them anywhere including on sliding rails. They have everything put the power out the front. The company also loans equipment to the local Linux Users Group.

The Dremel way...

[LaserBeams]

Cut the case in half right above the motherboard bay and below the drive bays. Flip the bottom half around, and weld/rivet/duct tape it back together. I'm not sure if the side panels would go back on, but it seems like it would work, otherwise.

One idea, probably stupid:

[biglig2]

Put the CD-ROM in an external case and turn the unit around so the backs to you.

Well, I said probably stupid, but what do you expect when I'm only on my second cup of coffee.

One dumb , one not-so dumb, and one clever idea.

[biglig2]

How about a Lazy Susan (you know, a rotating platform like in a chinese restaurant). No that's stupid idea, the cables won't stretch.

Mind you, there's one I've seen in the Jensen catalogue (it's a UK tool company, an kind of engineering pr0n magazine ;-) for your service workbench, very nice.

OK, run extension cables from the ports back into the case thru a slot, then up to the drive bays, and make a new drive bay plate that you mount them in.

Or, ignore all our ranting and just read the posts that answer your question, i.e. who mkaes these sorts of case!

Front USB

[haruharaharu]

There are literally piles of boxes with front mounted USB ports. The only problem is that most of them are really cheap. Best advice is to grab a $30 usb hub and velcro it to the side of your box.

I want one rear mount drive bay

[hamjudo]

I want the CD Writer facing backwards. I don't use anything else on the front of the system. Uptimes are in the hundreds of days, I don't use the powerswitch or reset button very often. I do want access to all of the connectors and the CD Writer.

It would be worth $20 to $30 to not need to get out the dremel and make my own rear facing drive bay.

The other choice is externally mounting the CD-Writer. That makes the whole system more fragile. More of a pain to move and to work on. It's hard to run IDE cables externally, possible, but hard. SCSI CDWriters are either slower, more expensive or both. USB 1.1 is slower. Firewire and USB 2.0 are more expensive. Check pricewatch.com, $71 for 24x10x40x IDE, USB 1.1 is limited to 4X4X6X ($85), firewire starts at $144.

Just answer the question.

[haplo21112]

All the guy asked is does anyone know of a case designed this way...
We all know of the drive bay plug answers, and other such stuff and there is always the dremel tool solution, but if would be nice to know if there is a case that already fits the need. which amoung the 30+ answers no one really says...

Re:Thought of Rack Mount?

[Rick the Red]

Someone mod the parent up! It's the best solution so far.

spinserver

[austad]

Here's a nice rackmount case that does what you want. They sell full systems or just the cases. You could always buy the 4u and put it on its side.

http://www.spinserver.com