DIY Server Case for short depth network racks/ Homelab build

recently i got into homelabing and the possibilities it offers for me. i have already a small mini pc/network appliance to play around with virtualization, docker and so on. but now i want to step up my game to learn even more. but i have not much space so i decided to do what i can do best and designed a rack case by myself which fits my wishes.

in my network rack i only have left 3U height and it is only 450mm deep. So i designed a 3U high, 300mm deep 19" case which is compatible with mATX boards but on the back of hte case i have 5 available slots to put a dual slot GPU inside the bottom PCIe slot on the motherboard and have it “overhang” the board. On the front it has 3 5,25 drive bays to be compatible with ICU Box IB-565SSK to put in up to 5x 3,5" HDDs, but the mounting brackets are designed in a way that it is possible to mount 3x single 5,25 drives. i also included a mount for my Raspberry Pi. There is no other place in my rack to put it but “enough” space inside that enclosure.

The compromises I had to make for such a tight space was to design the case around an SFX formfactor PSU with the power connector on the side instead of the rear. (clearances are checked and I know it works), the fan on the front I switched from mounting it inside to the outside (more space for a GPU and airflow will be a bit strange. It pulls fresh air inside the front, for the CPU from the top with a 3D printed duct in the middle of the case. The PSU sucks air from the back. Exhaust will be on the top lid across the entire rear. For my configuration it should work. Above the “server” in my rack is the patch panel.

Chase is finished so far. Small modifications are still pending…

For the use case:

First I planed only to use it as a NAS for my home network, a Plex server and as a base to thinker with VMs and Docker. The more I dive into the topic the more possibilities I discover.

MY plan now is:

  • A VM with a second instance of pFsense for HA (the cpu fan on my network appliance died within 5 month and replacement took 4weeks. It is not in production but I want to replace my ISPs router with my own solution because the router from my ISP sucks)
  • A VM for a second instance of a docker host also for HA (will be fun to get into kubernetes and docker swarm)
  • A VM for NAS/Plex

The rest of the recurses I want to use for getting deeper into Kubernetes, docker, docker compose and swarm and AI

For the hardware I plan the following:

  • AMD Ryzen 5900x or 5900xt or 5950x (those got cheap in the last months)
  • Silverstone Nitrogen NT06 Pro V2 for CPU cooling
  • Asrock B550m Pro4
  • 128gb DDR4 RAM
  • A 500Gb 2,5” SSD for the OS
  • A 2Tb NVMe to speed up ZFS on the NAS VM
  • Dual port 2,5baseT pcie x1 network card (excluded from dom0 and directly passed through to the pFsense VM)
  • 10G sfp+ pcie x4 network card for NAS communication
  • A coral m.2 E-key TPU (found a working one at my local scrap yard)
  • A piKVM for IPMI (I have good experience with the Geekworm KVM-A8 PCIe version)
  • And a GPU for Plex encoding and AI (here I’m undecided if I use a consumer grade card or an RTXX 4000 Ada Gen.)

here is how the current status is:



I’m still questionin if what I’m building ist to ambitious…

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I like the case despite it not being a big departure from some current offerings on the market. I put together a similar system in a similar chasis earlier this year with the only major difference being that my chasis is a 4u size.


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Nice!
The issue i had was every 3U case on the market was too deep and didn’t had 5,25" drive bays or if it was short enough it was 4U. too long and too high doesn’t fit in my rack

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Yeah 3U is somewhat of an oddball size that isn’t near as common as the 1,2, & 4U units. For me I don’t really have size limitations so I could have done a 6U if I wanted it, just wasn’t necessary.

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thank ya’ll for your productive feedback. moded the slotcover a bit and added more cooling.


did it on my cnc router. first time i was milling steel

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