Holy crap that's cheap! The backplanes alone are about $270 each. I use Norco chassis personally, but if I had that sort of price on multiple SC846's, I would jump all over them.
MadHatter, that's a good setup for home. You certainly have the weight limit of the shelf unit at the max though. I might consider a similar shelf for my home office. I've got a 42U 2 post rack in a closet now where my Norco 4220, Firewall, and some other misc servers are sitting and ventilation...
I'm in process of building a 4220 now. I currently have 5 pc's all running in order to have multiple network shares for a fraction of my media. I'm consolidating all the media into one location. I own over 1000 dvd's and 2000 music cd's that I want to convert and be accessible at anytime. I...
Only good if you are doing linux and XMBC as stated above. Windows will kill it and you'll see a lot of slowness when loads get high.
It would be a great setup for secondary HTPC's in bedrooms or offices, but not as a primary system.
Sorry to hear about the end of your project. Parents just dont understand...I think the Fresh Price said that once :D
My wife would have a fit if I told her I was going to build something like that or size too.
For a large case, they aren't bad at all. I built a clients PC in one the first week they became available a couple years ago. You can't beat the price you paid!