Using the floppy bay in a P180 for a hard disk

[Paradigm Shifter]

Well, they aren't cheap, but if you'd kill for more HDD space, but don't want to faff around switching cases or running drives externally it would be worth it.

However, thinking about it... what about a USB3 PCI/PCI-E card, and one of those external 'drop the drive on the dock and it runs' type jobs? I seem to remember a couple of different ones. One made by Sharkoon? That way the drive isn't on all the time getting power if you don't need it. Still, it's not exactly a neat solution.

I still intend to build my own desktop chassis at some point. There is just nothing out there that does 100% what I want.

[packerfan]

Want. Would be useful. Noisy as hell, though, if it's a typical datacentre case.

It is really popular on HardForum so I imagine it is pretty good, still no idea on volume. Some people have modded it for 120mm fans.

[Mesh]

The best in terms of space to drives I've found are these:
http://www.noiseblocker.de/en/produkt_entkoppler_nb-xswing.php

Each pair fits 2 3.5 drives in 1 5.25 bay so 6 drives for 3 bays.

Trouble with these is no built-in fan and trouble to find somewhere to purchase them, I got lucky and found a shop sort of locally to buy em from, was a bit of a drive but worth it, they reduce the noise of 2 wd 10k raptors to less than one seagate 7200.

[MobsterOO7]

The best in terms of space to drives I've found are these:
http://www.noiseblocker.de/en/produkt_entkoppler_nb-xswing.php

Each pair fits 2 3.5 drives in 1 5.25 bay so 6 drives for 3 bays.

Trouble with these is no built-in fan and trouble to find somewhere to purchase them, I got lucky and found a shop sort of locally to buy em from, was a bit of a drive but worth it, they reduce the noise of 2 wd 10k raptors to less than one seagate 7200.

Even seeing pictures of these things with 2 drives on them sitting next to a normal optical drive I still have a hard time believing that the math works out with this. These are available at Frozen-CPU over here in the states which is nice. Will definitely be keeping these in mind!
My 5.25 bays use rails that screw onto the drives but that shouldn't be a problem.

[Mesh]

The rails may or may not pose a problem, most likely it'll just increase the "finger gymnastics" to hold em together when installing.

I did not however actually use 6 drives in 3 bays so it might be a tad tight overall, even if they all fit I'd be concerned about cooling though, need at least 1 fan.

[MobsterOO7]

Well, I've put the drive in just fine. I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough room but in fact there was more than enough room. I'm not sure if this is because the floppy bay in the P180 is also supposed to use the rail system that the 5.25 bays use or not; but after I taped on a folded over piece of paper to the drive, it fit rather snugly. After doing long formats and transferring data to them they are still running cool. The one that is sitting in front of a fan is even cold to the touch!