- Aug 26, 2000
- 17,484
- 33
- 86
Cliff's:
- Most mid towers have 4 5.25" bays, which will get used, so can't be used for cable holding.
- Don't want too much of a mess, needs to put up with unknown location. The P180 looks good, but it's been awhile for me, so I'm doing a feeler for other options, or affirmations of m choice.
- Got a better case? What is it and why is it better?
Opteron 270 in a Tiger K8SSA (nice price/performance/features) and 2GB RAM
Seasonic S12 500W or so (feel free to criticize this choice, too).
3x5.25" 5x3.5" SATA plane/bay with removable and reorientable fan (there's got to be a real word for that).
Optical drive (4 used 5.25" bays)
A few HDDs on a 3Ware RAID card (ATM, 2, but this isn't set in stone)
It's for a somewhat small office, to be a behemoth of a server to get things done and have headroom to grow. So, it will be beneficial to get a case with some room, that can cool well (what corner is it going to be tucked in?), and in general won't be annoying to revisit. Also, no bling or odd openings and lights.
The obvious choices that come up for a big one are P180 (with power extensions) and Stacker. For smaller, much of the Antec line-up looks nice, but I'll et to that in a minute. Enermax has some alright cases, but all will be loud for the cooling job they do, and the swappd one (718) at least appears to be a cabling and/or upgrade nightmare. Lian-Li is of course just too show-ey (also Silverstone).
The motherboard layout, size, and the 4x5.25" bays used makes me think a nice mid tower would be a little too cramped, as the handy cable-holding top bays won't be able to do that. The P180 and Stacker both offer other plain old roominess to do the job. The side vent, and general openness of the Stacker don't sit well with me for an office, though (in terms of external appearance and access).
In terms of aesthetics, cooling, noise (though silence isn't priority #1, extra loud won't do, either), places to put stuff, and cable management, the P180 seems to really stand out as the best choice to me. However, if anyone here has other suggestions, nasty things to say about the P180, or reasons to go for the Stacker (which also gets some love around here, by my searching), I'd love to see them. It has been awhile since I've had to choose a non-rack case for anything but a normal or micro desktop, and am not confident I've seen all the good choices, so I'd like to make sure I've got my bases covered in researching the case.
- Most mid towers have 4 5.25" bays, which will get used, so can't be used for cable holding.
- Don't want too much of a mess, needs to put up with unknown location. The P180 looks good, but it's been awhile for me, so I'm doing a feeler for other options, or affirmations of m choice.
- Got a better case? What is it and why is it better?
Opteron 270 in a Tiger K8SSA (nice price/performance/features) and 2GB RAM
Seasonic S12 500W or so (feel free to criticize this choice, too).
3x5.25" 5x3.5" SATA plane/bay with removable and reorientable fan (there's got to be a real word for that).
Optical drive (4 used 5.25" bays)
A few HDDs on a 3Ware RAID card (ATM, 2, but this isn't set in stone)
It's for a somewhat small office, to be a behemoth of a server to get things done and have headroom to grow. So, it will be beneficial to get a case with some room, that can cool well (what corner is it going to be tucked in?), and in general won't be annoying to revisit. Also, no bling or odd openings and lights.
The obvious choices that come up for a big one are P180 (with power extensions) and Stacker. For smaller, much of the Antec line-up looks nice, but I'll et to that in a minute. Enermax has some alright cases, but all will be loud for the cooling job they do, and the swappd one (718) at least appears to be a cabling and/or upgrade nightmare. Lian-Li is of course just too show-ey (also Silverstone).
The motherboard layout, size, and the 4x5.25" bays used makes me think a nice mid tower would be a little too cramped, as the handy cable-holding top bays won't be able to do that. The P180 and Stacker both offer other plain old roominess to do the job. The side vent, and general openness of the Stacker don't sit well with me for an office, though (in terms of external appearance and access).
In terms of aesthetics, cooling, noise (though silence isn't priority #1, extra loud won't do, either), places to put stuff, and cable management, the P180 seems to really stand out as the best choice to me. However, if anyone here has other suggestions, nasty things to say about the P180, or reasons to go for the Stacker (which also gets some love around here, by my searching), I'd love to see them. It has been awhile since I've had to choose a non-rack case for anything but a normal or micro desktop, and am not confident I've seen all the good choices, so I'd like to make sure I've got my bases covered in researching the case.
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