SPCR

Thanks. Great review as always. I never stop to be amazed by how quiet Fractal Design fans measure, I hear mine so clearly.

Seems the case is a bit overpriced but so are most other mini-ATX cases as well.

Do I see this correctly? The front intake fan mounts to a metal bracket that *does not* span the width of the chassis? So that it's not forced to directly draw intake air from the side vents?

The front intake fan mounts to a metal bracket that *does not* span the width of the chassis?

If I understand correctly this has been remedied in the second revision. On the other hand, I`m not too fond of putting the psu intake directly above the cpu cooler, even if there is some clearance in this case.

I also noticed something else: the intake filter and hard drive trays are the same as those in Lian Li cases. In fact I`m quite sure Lian Li are the manufacturer. The steel R2 construction is also very similar to that of Lancool cases.

ntavlas wrote:On the other hand, I`m not too fond of putting the psu intake directly above the cpu cooler, even if there is some clearance in this case.

This would be helped with a lower wattage board. say a 6W-20W VIA board

As for my thoughts, the Jetway NF76-N1GL-LF with the 4 sata port daughter-board (ADPE4S-PB) would be a great combo for this case. It would have the 6 sata ports needed for this case. As for cooling the drives, you are never going to be working them all very hard at any one time, network link will be the bottle neck. I wonder if a bit of rubber between the harddrive cage and the side panels would help the sound, a broccoli rubber band comes to mind, with holes cut for the screws. Same on the sides of the drives. I'm not sure there would be clearance for that, but it could help. this is the first non rack mount with 6 bays. I was considering building something about this size as a NAS.

While it's great to see a relative newcomer entering the case market, I think I'd still wait for the Lian Li PC-Q08 (http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/pr ... s_index=63). Not only does it maintain the 6 drive bays (great for a WHS!) it also has a normal size DVD slot, as well as a normal sized PSU bay.

Nice to see some testing with more than one drive, certainly brings a different and enriched perspective to testing (and buying)....

Not a fan of small pcs but I like seeing tests on different kinds of cases...

My Array Mini lies still on my assembly table waiting for the Supermicro X7SPA-H motherboard to arrive, but I installed today the hard drives and I can assure you that you do not have to unscrew the hard disk cage side screws, only four screws on top. The correct procedure is just like described in article, "On most small cases, the top cover comes off, the hard drive cage/tray is lowered in and lazily screwed in from the top with relative ease".

Ok, it might be a smarter system, you have to unscrew six screws for the top and four ones for the cage, but I can live with it

haha... humans really do miss the most obvious things sometimes, i know i do.

10 screws is still about 6 too many in my book.

I was looking forward to a review on this case. I like the idea of a small cheap NAS case that can take a bunch of drives. Guess I'll still be looking for the "cheap" part as this may be around $200 (if NCIX gets it), the Chenbro 4-bay costs even more and even the Lian Li PC-Q08 costs around $130 and is getting on the big side.

fleetwood wrote:The correct procedure is just like described in article, "On most small cases, the top cover comes off, the hard drive cage/tray is lowered in and lazily screwed in from the top with relative ease".

I had to go back and look very closely at the pictures to understand what you were talking about. On page 3, the picture of just the harddrive cage shows 4 screws on the top of the cage, right where it transitions from cage to side wall mounts. It looks like those are the screws Fleetwood is mentioning. If they are, looking at the shot of the cage installed, would seem to show that as long as nothing is in the space of the installed cage, you should not have any clearance problems. It also looks like a large part of the cabling could be done before hand if you do not have small fingers.

Now I have my new Mini Array NAS built and running and installing hard disks was pretty easy, I took some photos too, but the forum does not let me to publish the link since I have not enough written posts yet.

I installed hard disks to the cage, attached all sata and power cables and then just lowered the cage in it's place. Sata power cables were almost too short, but after all all cables could be attached before lowering the cage.

The Mini Array is not the most silent case, you can hear six running hard disks very well. However, it is more quiet than my old Terastation Pro II.

Here is the link for the pictures: http://www.aijaa.com/albums.php?album&a=30130.

I also got this case after reading about it here. Great case for a DYI NAS-box.

Is it possible to squeeze any more disks in this - perhaps in the space for the second PCI slot? I'd really like to be able to get 8 disks on an 8 port controller, plus a 2.5" on the mainboard for the OS. It's a little difficult to see where the spaces are in a photo.

DavidRa wrote:Is it possible to squeeze any more disks in this - perhaps in the space for the second PCI slot? I'd really like to be able to get 8 disks on an 8 port controller, plus a 2.5" on the mainboard for the OS. It's a little difficult to see where the spaces are in a photo.

You can squezze in 2 more disks. One next to the PSU and one next to the PCI-slot.

I have seen the ZOTAC NM10 which is a Mini DTX Atom motherboard w 6 SATA on Newegg. Seems like a good fit. It also has a PCI-E x16 and an x1 slot -- and Newegg also sells x1 4 port SATA cards. Should be quite enough...