I am about to build out a rack mounted server that will by the host of my future vail server and potentially convert my V1 server over to. My current question is just on the best case. I plan on having at max 12 drives, but probably only 8. I want to be able to be able to put normal sized motherboards in and full hight cards, so I think I need a 3U size. I will be putting Hyper-V on the core install with 2 drives in RAID 0 as my core boot drive and then I would have 8 or so other drives installed. I think I will do laptop hard drives for my boot drives, but not committed to this, mainly focused on lower power. I plan on putting home server as a vm and then dedicating specific hard drives and network cards to it. I plan is to put the next vail build on it and I think I will also put my V1 server on it. then I can simply decomission V1 and move to V2 without having to shut down anything and just move data from one to the other and it wouldn't even go off my machine, just between the VMs.
What I would like to know is what is the best rack mountable case with at least 8 hot swappable drives in it. I am open to buying a seperate power supply for it, but probably would limit to 500Watts or less. I am willing to spend around $100 for the power supply and $200 for the case and can go over if there is a good reason. I want something that lasts. To me the case is just a container, other thatn the power supply, so not sure why I should spend much for it. Power consumption is also an issue, so I want to minmize this.
This is for my personal use, so it would not be the end of the world if it goes down, but obviously want something that lasts.
Looking for input on what is the best case to go with and should I replace the power supply that comes with it. I typically buy from Amazon or NewEgg, so links to either works for me.
