I have done both. In your case there is no point in a shelf and it just takes up extra space and power. That said there are more than a few shelf’s that only use about 25 watts empty. The LSI cards use around 10 watts. And then spinning rust uses well 5 to 10 each drive. For all the SAS card haters mother boards with lots a sata ports need extra controllers as well and the crappy ones take even more power. If you build a large drive setup disk shelf’s allow you to expand easily and without adding more motherboards which also take guess what… power! As far as noise goes most of the shelf’s suck but some can be made to work without rocking your ears. But more power more heat more cooling.
I have done both. In your case there is no point in a shelf and it just takes up extra space and power. That said there are more than a few shelf’s that only use about 25 watts empty. The LSI cards use around 10 watts. And then spinning rust uses well 5 to 10 each drive. For all the SAS card haters mother boards with lots a sata ports need extra controllers as well and the crappy ones take even more power. If you build a large drive setup disk shelf’s allow you to expand easily and without adding more motherboards which also take guess what… power! As far as noise goes most of the shelf’s suck but some can be made to work without rocking your ears. But more power more heat more cooling.