I like the case I got.. but... it has four (count 'em!) 5.25" drive bays. I can see a single optical drive. I can maybe see 2 optical drives for special-purpose rigs. I can maybe-maybe far-out see 2 optical drives + another 5.25" device like a fan controller.. which brings us to 3 slots used out of 4. Now, the XL R2 is a full-tower case, so maybe they just tossed in those bays to fill up room. Interestingly, both of the 2.5/3.5" internal drive bays are completely removable from the case to free internal space and enable better airflow from the front fans.
Here's one trick: I fully intend to use some Scotch heavy-duty fastener tape (i.e. heavy-duty Velcro by another name) to place both of those SSD's on the back-side of the motherboard tray (it has 25 mm of clearance, which is more than enough for an SSD). I will then completely remove the 3.5" hard drive cages to give a completely unimpeded airflow path from the front intake fans to the motherboard area.
How about this wacky case design in ASCII art. I've seen similar things in some boutique builds so I'm not claiming complete originality, but it is a departure from the standard tower design:
edit: Ack, formatting messed up my beautiful artwork Let's try it in code mode:
Code: Select all
(Front view)
+------------------+
| FAN | O S |
| FAN | O S |
| FAN | O S |
| FAN | O S |
| FAN | |
+------------------+
What you see here is my redneck double-wide case (not necessarily to scale). Two major chambers, the left one being the main case area for the motherboard/GPU/Addon cards/PSU(?) The whole front can be taken up by intake fans if you like, although it's not necessary. On the right-hand chamber, one optical drive (O) is mounted vertically, with lots of volume available for mounting SSDs and conventional HDDs either with front-facing hot-swap bays or just mounted internally going down the length of the case. In real life, the right-hand chamber would likely be narrower than the left-hand chamber.
Edit: A couple of thoughts:
1. Removable motherboard trays are not a popular as they once were, but this case would benefit from one since reaching the back side of the motherboard would be a little bit of an issue since you'd be reaching through the right-hand chamber. Then again, if the cut-out for the backside of the CPU mount region is still accessible, it might not be a big deal and you could still work in-situ on the back side of the motherboard.
2. Putting the PSU in the right-hand side chamber with the drives might be the way to go: there would be one less thing generating heat & blocking air in the left-hand chamber (cables could just go through a pass-through and have minimum blockage in the left-hand chamber). The optical drives & HDDs/SSDs don't generate huge amounts of heat to begin with and really don't need much in the way of cooling, so your hot components could be isolated with the PSU being the only "hot" component in the right-hand chamber.
Any ideas about how you think this type of case would do?