Case suggestions

Frozennova

Frozennova

Frozennova

Man of Honour
Joined
13 Nov 2009
Posts
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Location
Northampton
On the hunt for a new case for my home server to live in a having a bit of trouble drawing up a short list.
Requirements are as follows:
£100 slightly flexible budget
Minimum 9x3.25" Bays
1x5.25" Bay minimum
ATX motherboard
Good acoustics, sound deadening included would be nice.
Reaaonably decent airflow
SSD mounts would be a bonus.
No taller than a Bitfenix Ronin

Hardware spec is :
Asrock 970 pro3
Amd FX4100
Dell SAS raid card

So far I've come across the Fractal Design R4 and the Nanoxia Deep Silence 5. With the Nanoxia slightly beating the Fractal at the moment due to the ability to house 16 3.25" drive using a Norco 5-in-3 caddy
 
Shivy011 said:
Uh, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but isn't it taller than the Ronin?

Dimensions (WxHxD) 205 x 483 x 505mm (Ronin)
Dimensions (W x H x D) 220 x 507 x 508.6 mm (Silencio)
Click to expand...

2.4cm great, so? let the OP decide if its suitable :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

Realised the Nanoxia DS5 is off list as it's way too tall.

The Silencio will just fit on the shelf the server lives, the front will just overhang enough to be able to get to the power button and at 507mm tall it's got 3mm of clearance.

Stulid, you get through a lot of kit have you built in the Silencio and the Fractal R4.

If so how would you say they compare

Edit: having a blonde day.

Power button on the cooler Master is on the front, and the Fractal only takes 8 drives out of the box.

Looks like we have a winner
 
Last edited:
Not used either dude, I hear good things about Fractal all the time.

But with that Silencio doing what you want..sorted.
 
Ended up buying the Fractal R4

Other than it being one drive short of my requirement I can use an adapter to stick one in a 5.25 Bay.

Going over specs and images of everything on my shortlist it had the smallest footprint, the best internal layout and seemed to the most focused on acoustics.

It arrived today buy other than unboxing it to take a quick look I haven't had a chance to build in it yet, but I'm very pleased. Loads of sound deadening,anti vibration mounts on anything likes likely to vibrate, cable management looks great and it feels well built
 
You can fit more drives in a Fractal Define.. I have 11 in mine, plus a Hotswap Bay and DVD drive.. and a SSD... But now looking at Nanoxia for more... :)
 
I found the Fractal R4 very easy to work in, plenty of space and its very quiet.

I'm only changing my case for aesthetic reasons as it'll sit on the desk in the future and I may as well may it look pretty. R4 will move to a new build in living room where a quiet case will be needed.
 
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