Bought this to build a home made NAS and very pleased with it - one of the best features is that it can take 4x 3.5 HD in hot swap drawers with room for 2x2.5 HD or SSD or 1 of these with slim optical drive. Be aware the array of LEDS on the front only work if you buy a server motherboard, which I didn't, but no great loss. PSU is included. Bought this to build a home made NAS and very pleased with it - one of the best features is that it can take 4x 3.5 HD in hot swap drawers with room for 2x2.5 HD or SSD or 1 of these with slim optical drive. Be aware the array of LEDS on the front only work if you buy a server motherboard, which I didn't, but no great loss. PSU is included.

What can I say? Nice case, well built, no sharp edges inside ;). Front panel & door is plastic, but the sub-panel behind it and the rest of the case is metal. Metal drive cage & trays, with plastic handles/latches. Space-wise, there's room for a normal socketed CPU with standard heatsink/fan (you might have to pay attention to power/SATA cable dress), but it won't take anything with a large passive heatsink or big aftermarket cooler. The 1 available PCI slot has enough room for a full height, full length card (if you use a half-height bracket), but not for a wide card or anything with a large heatsink or fan (e.g. high-powered GPU).

Stock ...view more What can I say? Nice case, well built, no sharp edges inside ;). Front panel & door is plastic, but the sub-panel behind it and the rest of the case is metal. Metal drive cage & trays, with plastic handles/latches. Space-wise, there's room for a normal socketed CPU with standard heatsink/fan (you might have to pay attention to power/SATA cable dress), but it won't take anything with a large passive heatsink or big aftermarket cooler. The 1 available PCI slot has enough room for a full height, full length card (if you use a half-height bracket), but not for a wide card or anything with a large heatsink or fan (e.g. high-powered GPU).

Stock case fan (ADDA AD1212DB-A7BGL, 12V, 4 wire) was quiet-ish but noticeable in a quiet room (I swapped it with a Noctua 3-wire under BIOS/motherboard control). Stock 315W PSU fan (some model of 40mm ADDA) is temp-controlled (low speed at 0 load) and just idling along powering a J4105 m/board + SSD + SAS adaptor + 3x HDDs - I had expected to replace it for low noise, but it's almost inaudible even at night so it's stayed for the time being. I've been running this set up for about 2 weeks now and motherboard reported, HDD reported, measured case internal, & measured exhaust air temps are a consistent 0~10℃ above ambient even under load, so cooling & airflow is sufficient.

Older reviews indicate the front-panel USB Type A connectors are only USB-2, but the case purchased has USB-3 on front.

Pros:
- Good build quality at a good price.
- 4 x HDD trays support both 3.25" & 2.5" HDD.
- Mounting space for 1 x Internal 2.5" SSD or HDD & 1 x slimline optical drive.
- Comes with screws, etc for all of the above.
- SATA backplane supports drive ID on individual trays, temperature monitoring, etc (when using a SAS-SATA cable with sideband connection) and hotswap.
- Good air flow for a small case.
- Didn't cut me ;)

Cons:
- Stock case fan is a little noisy - quieter than a server chassis, good enough for a desktop PC, but just a bit noisy for a 'quiet' build.
- Some front panel lights (e.g. master ID & Fail) require motherboard or SAS adaptor support.
- Not the most stylish case, but unobtrusive and almost invisible sitting in the corner of the lounge room.

As far as these types of cases go this is pretty straight forward. It has a removable tray for the motherboard, making installation a breeze. Plenty of space to route cables from the backplane and power supply. Has the additional led indicators for nic activity. Two front usb 3.1 ports for easy connectivity. Some additional space for cooling fans would be nice, but I'm not having any heat issues at all with the single fan at the back.

Aesthetics wise, its a clean modern looking design which doesn't look out of place in my office nor in a server rack As far as these types of cases go this is pretty straight forward. It has a removable tray for the motherboard, making installation a breeze. Plenty of space to route cables from the backplane and power supply. Has the additional led indicators for nic activity. Two front usb 3.1 ports for easy connectivity. Some additional space for cooling fans would be nice, but I'm not having any heat issues at all with the single fan at the back.

Aesthetics wise, its a clean modern looking design which doesn't look out of place in my office nor in a server rack

Bought this to build a home made NAS and very pleased with it Bought this to build a home made NAS and very pleased with it