I've gone back and forth on home server cases more times than I care to admit. Every time I switch I promise myself, this time it's permanent. I haven't kept my promises.
My current home server is housed in a Supermicro 825 (2U) series chassis. As much as I like SM stuff, there are two issues I want to address: interior height and the power supply.
On the interior height: I don't have an immediate need for more height, but I have my eye on that Asrock Rack X470D4U board, and if I migrate to that, I'd like to not be too limited with CPU coolers. Also, bigger cases allow bigger fans, so they can run slower (read: quieter) while still providing enough airflow.
The main issue is really the PSU: one, it's way over-powered for my humble setup; and two, it's loud. It's actually not that loud, but it's high-pitched and rather annoying. I could be mistaken, but it looks like SM doesn't make any low powered (say <300W) PSUs, and I think (at least with this case?) they are not standard 1U PSUs, so I can't just buy any old 1U PSU. Happy to be wrong here: if I can get a quiet(er), right-sized PSU, I'll likely be happy for now.
That said, I'm looking to replace the chassis with a 4U rackmount. I'm afraid to stay with SM, partially due to cost, but mostly due to worry of being in the same boat regarding PSUs... I'd really like to use a plain old ATX power supply, as they are cheap, readily available and quiet. (I don't need redundancy for this home server. The current SM chassis has dual 1U hotswap PSUs, but I actually have one pulled for efficiency.)
I only have four 3.5" spinning drives (plus one 2.5 SSD and one M.2 SSD). Hot-swap is nice to have, but not absolutely necessary, as long as the drives are reasonably easy to access/change.
So, after a fair amount of searching, I landed on this: iStarUSA D-400L-7. Note the "L" (for "long") which gives it enough room for the 3x120mm fan panel in the middle. Just over $200 online. ATX power supply. All those 5.25" bays could house 3.5" drives (using adapters) or could accommodate hotswap racks if I want to get fancy.
Other cases that meet my requirements, but fall short, include:
Anything I'm overlooking?
Other than the drives I mentioned, the rest of the server is an x10sdv-tln4f (Xeon D-1541).
Thanks!
My current home server is housed in a Supermicro 825 (2U) series chassis. As much as I like SM stuff, there are two issues I want to address: interior height and the power supply.
On the interior height: I don't have an immediate need for more height, but I have my eye on that Asrock Rack X470D4U board, and if I migrate to that, I'd like to not be too limited with CPU coolers. Also, bigger cases allow bigger fans, so they can run slower (read: quieter) while still providing enough airflow.
The main issue is really the PSU: one, it's way over-powered for my humble setup; and two, it's loud. It's actually not that loud, but it's high-pitched and rather annoying. I could be mistaken, but it looks like SM doesn't make any low powered (say <300W) PSUs, and I think (at least with this case?) they are not standard 1U PSUs, so I can't just buy any old 1U PSU. Happy to be wrong here: if I can get a quiet(er), right-sized PSU, I'll likely be happy for now.
That said, I'm looking to replace the chassis with a 4U rackmount. I'm afraid to stay with SM, partially due to cost, but mostly due to worry of being in the same boat regarding PSUs... I'd really like to use a plain old ATX power supply, as they are cheap, readily available and quiet. (I don't need redundancy for this home server. The current SM chassis has dual 1U hotswap PSUs, but I actually have one pulled for efficiency.)
I only have four 3.5" spinning drives (plus one 2.5 SSD and one M.2 SSD). Hot-swap is nice to have, but not absolutely necessary, as long as the drives are reasonably easy to access/change.
So, after a fair amount of searching, I landed on this: iStarUSA D-400L-7. Note the "L" (for "long") which gives it enough room for the 3x120mm fan panel in the middle. Just over $200 online. ATX power supply. All those 5.25" bays could house 3.5" drives (using adapters) or could accommodate hotswap racks if I want to get fancy.
Other cases that meet my requirements, but fall short, include:
- Rosewill RSV-L4x00 (e.g. RSV-L4500) - some reports of this not actually fitting and working smoothly with sliding rails in a rack cabinet; also, not sure if the 5.25" bays are standard enough to accommodate generic hotswap caddies (i.e. is it restricted strictly to Rosewill caddies?).
- Various Norco offerings - I don't need SM quality, but in my experience, Norco goes too far in the other direction. I had a Norco 4U many years ago, and found out the hard way it's actually too wide to be used with sliding rails in a standard 19" rack. Also the front panel buttons physically broke (and stopped working).
Anything I'm overlooking?
Other than the drives I mentioned, the rest of the server is an x10sdv-tln4f (Xeon D-1541).
Thanks!