Interesting new M-ITX NAS case...

Wow, perfect WHS box! I'll have to keep my eye out for one of those.

Can't find it for sale anywhere though.
 
Saw this one a while back, overall good but a few things I really don't like.
- Poor motherboard side cooling, no visible exhaust fans I can see.
- Because they included the hot swap bays it's tall enough to fit a microATX board, but only has the mounts for the ITX.
- External power supply when they could have squeezed in a 1u or other compact PSU.
 
Saw this one a while back, overall good but a few things I really don't like.
- Poor motherboard side cooling, no visible exhaust fans I can see.
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There a space for a 60mm intake fan for the the motherboard side, and vent holes in the back for exhausting hot air.

- Because they included the hot swap bays it's tall enough to fit a microATX board, but only has the mounts for the ITX.
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There are very few Micro-ATX boards that support mobile CPUs, and clearly the case isn't designed to cope with the thermal profile of a lot of desktop CPUs. By limiting the motherboard to Mini-ITX, and with most of those boards taking mobile CPUs, you are ensuring that the right CPU gets used.

Also, a Micro-ATX motherboard would cover the SATA cable routing hole, requiring a significant redesign of the case to handle getting the cables from one side to the other.

- External power supply when they could have squeezed in a 1u or other compact PSU.
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An internal power supply would have meant yet more heat and another fan, and I've found that the 60mm fans on a lot of compact power supplies can get loud when the thermals rise. External power supplies in the 120-150W class don't need fans, which is good for an application like this. Getting a power supply into that case would have meant a fairly significant case redesign for both thermal and layout reasons.

The case isn't everything to everyone, but I can't think of anything quite like it in it's category (most cases with hot-swap SATA bays are at least mid-tower ATX cases, and often a lot bigger). I've been thinking about building my own NAS, and if this case is priced right, I might consider it.
 
widefault said:
Saw this one a while back, overall good but a few things I really don't like.
- Poor motherboard side cooling, no visible exhaust fans I can see.
Click to expand...
- Stock cooling ability looks adequate to me. Two fans in back and an exhaust grille on top. Should be sufficient for an ITX motherboard and CPU.
widefault said:
- Because they included the hot swap bays it's tall enough to fit a microATX board, but only has the mounts for the ITX.
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- I don't see where the hard drive bays would preclude you from installing a mATX board. Then again, I'm not sure the chassis is big enough to accommodate an mATX board to begin with.
widefault said:
- External power supply when they could have squeezed in a 1u or other compact PSU.
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- Since when is removing a heat source a bad thing? :D

I'm not attacking you. I simply disagree with your comments.
 
Awesomeness, looks like a case for my next project. =)
 
2 Things I don't like about that case.

1. I would love to see a second 2.5 inch hd spot. That way you could run a raid 1 for the os and a raid 5 for data. Would make a nice little home server.

Also I would love to have seen it be a tiny bit bigger so you could fit a real raid card in it.
 
$236 does sound like a lot. But, htpc cases on newegg already start out at $100 and I've personally never seen a 4-drive hotswap sata cage for less than $100 (nevermind the fact that no SFF will fit one anyway).

What will make or break this case at $236 is build quality.
 
llmc said:
What will make or break this case at $236 is build quality.
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I've worked with Chenbro cases in the past, and I've been very happy with them, and just picked up the PC80568-BK-270H for use as a MythTV box (running Ubuntu) and I think it's a great case for what I need. Mostly tool-less, sturdy, nice finish, solid construction, and well thought out airflow.
 
I had a Chenbro Genie years ago. Build quality was top notch. Hopefully they haven't changed since then.

$236 is still a huge chunk of change for this little thing, SATA/SAS backplane or not. Maybe that price will change when they get some competition.

That being said, I'd love to have one paired up with a Jetway J7F4K1G5D-PB and some big HDs. Run WHS with a mirror set for the OS and two additional drives for WHS's data duplication.
 
I had a Chenbro Genie years ago. Build quality was top notch. Hopefully they haven't changed since then.
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I didn't mean to knock Chenbro in anyway, but I'd expect a $236 case (regardless of how unique it is) to be a step above the normal expectations for good build quality.

$236 is still a huge chunk of change for this little thing, SATA/SAS backplane or not. Maybe that price will change when they get some competition.
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Don't get me wrong; I agree that $236 is a huge chunk of change. But, you hit it right on the head. It's $236 because it is a tiny little thing. You simply can't do this right now in a package this size without heavy modding or custom case building.

But, until now, the main customers for nice mini itx boards and raid solutions have been businesses. Being in a market where these components can make or break the bottom line is a bad place to be for consumers that just want something cool to play with.

I bet that the release of WHS will bring a lot more competition in this area and that prices will fall on things like these. But, if you can't wait a year or so, $236 is probably the best you can do.
 
Ditto what everyone else is saying on this one, especially given the low price of some NASes out there.

I have a couple of NASes, including an Infrant NV+ and a Promise 4300N. Before I bought the promise, I tried to roll my own ITX box (a la Mashie's 5 disk ITX box), but the cost becomes prohibitive so fast. The Promise is a 4 disk RAID-5 NAS with Gb Ethernet. It's also selling for around $380.

http://www.provantage.com/promise-ns4300n~7PROM15A.htm

If you want a fill-it-with-hard-disks-put-it-in-a-closet-and-forget-about-it box, the Promise does a nice job, and you just can't roll your own any cheaper and keep a nice small form factor.
 
PurduEE said:
If you want a fill-it-with-hard-disks-put-it-in-a-closet-and-forget-about-it box, the Promise does a nice job, and you just can't roll your own any cheaper and keep a nice small form factor.
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Well of course, I've also read very good things about Synology's products and something like the Synology CS407 which would also be easier and cheaper to set up than putting your own system together (case + motherboard + OS + drives). The benefit to doing your own is that you can customize the OS/software running on it more, do more that requires high CPU performance, etc.
 
nray said:
The benefit to doing your own is that you can customize the OS/software running on it more, do more that requires high CPU performance, etc.
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Sure, but the ITX form factor and PSU wattage of this case end up being somewhat of a limiter on 'high CPU performance.' Even if you can get it all in the box under the PSUs wattage limits, it's going to be pretty loud to get the heat out of the box. The only way to keep it quiet is to reduce the CPU to a via solution, and then the performance is gone.

I'm not saying it's not going to make a cool (haha) project box, but I don't think the end result is really going to live up to the cost.
 
PurduEE said:
Sure, but the ITX form factor and PSU wattage of this case end up being somewhat of a limiter on 'high CPU performance.' Even if you can get it all in the box under the PSUs wattage limits, it's going to be pretty loud to get the heat out of the box. The only way to keep it quiet is to reduce the CPU to a via solution, and then the performance is gone.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Speaking from experience, mobile CPUs put out a lot less heat than desktop CPUs. And speaking from desktop CPU experience, I currently have a socket 939 system with an X2 3600+, 2GB RAM, 250GB 3.5" HD, DVD-RW, WinTV-PVR-500 MCE dual-tuner card, NVIDIA 6200 256MB PCIe, and 802.11g wireless with the only exhaust fans being a 60mm case fan and the 60mm in the FSP 350W MicroATX power supply, and the power supply fan, which is thermally controlled by the power supply, has stayed quiet on all but the hottest (100+ deg F) days.

Dual 60mm and an external power supply are fine for cooling a system with a mobile CPU (such as Merom), you do not need a VIA-based system in there.
 
nray said:
I disagree. Speaking from experience, mobile CPUs put out a lot less heat than desktop CPUs.

Dual 60mm and an external power supply are fine for cooling a system with a mobile CPU (such as Merom), you do not need a VIA-based system in there.
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mobile CPUs put out less heat? I'm aware - I've built a machine or two myself and/or used a laptop. Moreover, I have an Turion MT-40 based server. It's a really cool chip at 25w (passive cooling), but that's still 15 watts more than via's 10w envelope for the whole board + CPU. The other thing you're missing in your example is the 4x500GB or 750GB hard drives at 9-12 watts a piece, since we're talking about a NAS. Don't know if you own any of these, but they run pretty hot. Most NAS boxes I've seen use 80-90mm (@ around 2500-3000 RPM) fans to get the heat out. I suppose you can use 2 60's, but I'd imagine they're going to have to spin faster than 2500-3000 RPM (read - high-pitched and loud) to move the same CFM as a 90, since their combined area is less than a single 90.

Anyway, I'm done.
 
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