Question Built-in SD card readers in a world with no external drive bays ?

[sammykhalifa]

I think I did a good job with my 2015 build, but it's showing age and I'm looking into building again.

I could just recycle my Fractal Design define r4, it's not like there's anything wrong with it, but I'm considering something new and different and maybe smaller. Most case designers have decided I don't want drive bays, whatever I guess, but I've grown to really like my drive bay card reader. I get that there are some (ever dwindling) options for cases that still have drive bays, but I'm surprised there aren't more cases (that I can find) that have an sd card slot on the front panel with the typical USB ports. Google searching has found a few cooler master cases. What are people doing? Of course there are external options, but that seems to go against the idea of keeping things smaller and self contained. I'd like to have fewer cords and things taking up room in my area here. This would be for loading images off of my camera SD to process in lightroom.

 

[Mr.Tibbs]

Minimalism, a Philosophy of the minimum. Until I bought a fractal Design case that
had NO 5.25 bays in the front at all, I did not even look up this Philosophy. No way to stuff my DVD player in the case without warping it, so I bought another case and made sure it
was not minimalism.
Many ideas for what you can use 5.25 external bays for, such as storage, cooling fan controllers, speakers, etc.

I have a few MINI's that only have USB ports. So there are external USB DVD players, USB card readers and so on. A computer only has to be a MINI size to work just as good as a full sized tower. I put a NVMe card right on the internal circuit board which is a M.2 slot.
You would be amazed how MINI and minimal you could have for a computer.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

I bought the Fractal Designs Focus G because I needed to use hotswap drive bays. It has 2 front bays but also two 140mm front fans so its good for cooling too.

Focus G

www.fractal-design.com