Hi
I have several of these Supermicro CSE 743/745 chassis. They are a great and very flexible Server/Workstation chassis, but there are a few gotcha’s.
Make sure the motherboard you want to use will fit; you might need to tap some stand-off fixing holes!
The larger EE-ATX motherboards such as the X9DRi-LN4F+ will not fit the CSE-743. For that size motherboard you will need the CSE-745 series with redundant PSU.
The 743 chassis use the older PS2/ATX form-factor power supplies.
You will need to get creative in order to fit a modern ATX power supply as there are no modern ATX fixing points on the chassis.
There are two styles of rear fan, both fit each chassis.
The internal - Green fan holders will accept standard 80mm 4 Pin-PWM fans. Supermicro sells a quite fan solution for these chassis FAN-0104L4 SC743 (SQ Middle), FAN-0103L4 SC743 (SQ Rear).
The Chassis feet can be easily removed (One Screw - Each) and the top panel has no screws, just a catch.
The Front Outer rails fit onto the back side of a normal rack, with 5mm screws – you will need to get creative again here. This it the method I used.
The Rear Outer rails fit normally on the outside of the rack with 6mm cage nuts.
As previously noted, you will need access to sides of the rack to adjust the outer rail length.
One of the best aspects of this chassis is that the 3x5.25 drive cage can be rotated. Supermicro offers several solutions for fitting extra drives, see here.
Chassis | Supermicro
I hope this helps.
RedX1