Best MicroATX home server case?

[MarkProvanP]

My FreeNAS home server was built from spares and only a few new bits; among the spares was a circa-2004 beige/black ATX case. It works, but there are some problems. First, it has no front fan ability and only a 80mm fan at the back, which is a problem since the NAS is behind a filing cabinet. Second, it isn't the best built case in the world, with various rattles and wierd noises that have stayed the same even after a complete architecture change (Celeron 430 + ASUS P5N-E to an Athlon 64 LE-1600 + Gigabyte AM2 socket). I've looked at what other people recommend for home servers, which generally boil down to Chenbro cases, but there are problems with these: 1. they are Mini-ITX cases, so I would need to buy a new motherboard; and 2. they are really really expensive (£160 is far too much for a case that I would need to buy a new motherboard for).

Has anyone got any ideas about Micro-ATX home server cases? I am on a limited budget (I'm 14, with only income being £20 a month plus money from birthday/Christmas and the outside chance that Dad will pay for it.

 

[valentin]

Have a look at this one, it is also available in black and the price is nice.
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Subaru Legacy Specifications

 

[MarkProvanP]

Problem with that one is that it only has two 3.5" bays. Also, it seems that there will be a lot of wasted space since it is designed to hold large graphics cards, and the server has none (the card in the photos was because the original motherboard had no onboard graphics so we had to buy an 8400GT just so it would boot, now the AMD motherboard has onboard graphics). I do like the look of it, but it just seems a waste if I can only fit 2 (+2 drives in the 5.25" slots) hard drives in it. Thanks for showing me it, though.

 

[BriComp]

Hi,
Haven't used any of these but the "price is right".
https://www.pricelover.com/product/Pricelover_303X_White_Mini_Tower_No_PSU/MI-303X/
https://www.pricelover.com/product/Ezcool_7103H_Silver_MOD_Case_-_No_PSU/EC-7103Hi2-Silver/

 

[MarkProvanP]

Thanks again for looking for things, but I don't think that buying a new case just for it to be another cheap one. I came across something else that interested me, though:

SilverStone CFP51

I was thinking about one of these 4-HDD-in-3-DVD bay devices, but all I have seen apart from this one would cost a enormous amount, since they had proper hot-swap things. I have a horrible suspiscion that some of the noise and rumbles are caused by the beige £3 hot swap bays that I installed to begin with. I'm going to get a new case for my main computer so I might not need to buy a new case for the server at all.

 

[msl]

Can you say what your requirements are for the case? How many 3.5" and 5.25" drive bays required, and whether noise, size, cooling etc. are priorities?

If it is stuck out the way behind a filing cabinet do you really need a small case or will a normal size one do just as well? Smaller cases are likely to be less flexible and may be more expensive so be sure how much size matters. For example, I have my DIY NAS tucked away under a desk so size is not really an issue for me as long as it isn't taller than the desk.

It sounds like you are concerned by the noise of your current case. Where is the noise coming from? If you don't identify the source of the noise you might end up wasting money on new parts that don't help you at all. Try briefly stopping each fan in the system in turn to see what affect each one has on overall noise, and use pressure and your ears to locate rattles and vibrations.

A single exhaust fan in a decent case should be absolutely fine for a server machine that isn't using a hot graphics card. If air-flow at the rear of the case is obstructed then sticking intake fans at the front won't help much. You need space for the hot air to exit the case either way.

Edit to say... do you really need hot-swap drive bays? Is this a mission-critical system that cannot be offline for a few minutes while you swap a drive?

 

[MarkProvanP]

Noise is actually the most important aspect, with HDD capacity the next. I might not actually need a new case since I'm going to use the one I currently use for my main computer. I just thought about getting a new one because the cases are all very cheap & sorta-nasty (horrible shiny unpainted metal interiors, tacky plastic) units that I aquired from various old computers. I got the £3 'hot-swap' bays because 1. they were cheap, very cheap and 2. I had nothing else to put in the slots (hence the non-working floppy drive) and it was just in case something got in them. The reason for that CFP51 was that I might do a RAID array in the future and I don't want to worry about cooling, and I'm swapping the standard CPU cooler for a better, fanless one.

 

[msl]

Two cases I have used personally are Antec Sonata Elite and Antec Solo. Both are pretty quiet with their 120mm case fan on the low setting.

The Sonata Elite is used for my DIY NAS and the whole system runs very cool with a RAID array in there. I just use the main case fan and the extra "blower" is not fitted. Instead I taped over the blower exhaust area to keep all the airflow coming from the filtered front vent past the drives.

I would be a little wary of a fanless CPU cooler. A decent cooler with a quiet fan on rubber mounts to cut down vibration will likely be inaudible inside the case, and will certainly give you much better CPU cooling than a fanless heatsink.

Hope that helps.