Bass ackwards case design

[Bozo]

About 5 years ago I built two computers to run some propietary software and hardware. The hardware is a PCI card that is 14" long. I put everything in an Antec SX630II mid tower case. It was a snug fit, but it worked fine.
Now it is time to replace those computers and I am having a hard time finding a case that will accept the 14" PCI card.
It seems that 5 years ago, you could only install 2-3 hard drives in a midtower case. This was when hard drives were in the 20-40GB range. You needed to be creative if you needed a lot of storage space, or spend a ton of money on a 'server' case. And the cases would handle the 14" long card.
Now almost every mid tower case can support 4-6 hard drives. But now hard drives are up to 2TB in size. Isn't this backwards? And almost none of them will handle a 14" long card. It seems these mid tower cases have some sort of mounting system that goes from top to bottom in the case.
Even Antec's P180/183 cases are a problem. As big as they are, the 14" card will only fit if you remove the upper hard drive cage. And then you have to be sure your motherboard has a PCI slot up high enough to clear the shelf/floppy assembly.
I have decided to use some used Antec SX835II cases. They are over 5 years old, are about the same size as a P180, and they will only accept 3 hard drives. But there are tons of room inside, even for cards that are 14" long.
Case design in the last few years has gone bass-ackwards.

 

[MaxBurn]

This is a full length PCI with the back slot and everything?

Actually some of the video cards now are huge too, my plain old GTX260 just barely misses the drive rack in the P180 but means that you can't put drives in the rack without modifications to slide the drive back further than intended up against the fan.

 

[Bozo]

This is a full length PCI with the back slot and everything?

Yep, it even has the bracket on it to slide into the support in the SX835II.

 

[ddrueding]

You can get a cheap 3U rackmount for about the same price, that will fit no problem.

 

[Mercutio]

A lot of new brand name cases aren't even particularly friendly to IDE cables, let alone full length PCI cards.

The trend in desktop cases is really to go with smaller, chambered designs that don't work really well with older hardware, but I'm not sure why you couldn't just re-use the cases you already have.

 

[Bozo]

A lot of new brand name cases aren't even particularly friendly to IDE cables, let alone full length PCI cards.

The trend in desktop cases is really to go with smaller, chambered designs that don't work really well with older hardware, but I'm not sure why you couldn't just re-use the cases you already have.

The old computers must remain installed and running until the new ones are ready. The new computers will need to be tested by the engineers as we are moving to Windows 7, x64.

 

[time]

Why? Conservatism is the norm (for good reason) in this sort of application, so why would you change to a new released version of Windows?

 

[ddrueding]

Why? Conservatism is the norm (for good reason) in this sort of application, so why would you change to a new released version of Windows?

Because it means you have less migrations to do? Going to 7 now means you won't need to test against another OS for many, many years. I assume you are coming off of 2000 now that it has EOL'd?

 

[time]

Touché. But this is a dedicated box, not some infested Office host. So why do unnecessary upgrades? If Win 7 had been out for 2 or 3 years, I could maybe understand.

 

[Bozo]

These computers have been running 24/7/365 for over 5 years. The data they are collecting has been increased by a factor of 5. On occasion,
they have bogged down and lost data.
The new boxes are quad core with memory at 1333MHz. The best I can tell, XP is only good for 2 cores. Besides, why would you put a 9 year old OS on new hardware? XP has reached the end of it's practical life in regards to hardware.

 

[ddrueding]

XP is good for at least 4 cores, but 7 is still the right choice. You don't want to be doing this very often.

 

[Mercutio]

XP Pro supports two physical CPUs with as many cores as can be found in that physical package. We don't typically associate dual CPU systems with XP, but it's always had that capability.

Also, it doesn't sound like these machines are part of the common operating environment where Bozo works, so I'm thinking it would be wise to leave them on whatever software is known to work. Of course, I support clients who need DOS and sometimes even weirder things for their specialize needs, but I'm firmly in the camp of not fixing things that aren't broken.

 

[LunarMist]

The best I can tell, XP is only good for 2 cores. Besides, why would you put a 9 year old OS on new hardware? XP has reached the end of it's practical life in regards to hardware.

I've been running quad cores for several years on XP. You may be thinking of Win2K, which could not distinguish physical from logical cores. Of course I agree to Win7 being a logical choice.

 

[Bozo]

The push to replace these computers came during a routine backup and cleaning. Some of the capacitors on the motherboard have swollen tops.
XP is the fallback OS if the software does not run on Windows 7.

Thanks for the core count in XP. That makes me feel better about installing XP if I have to.
Merc, you are correct. These computers are in an industrial envirnment.