Silverstone Technology CS380B Silverstone DIY ATX NAS Storage Case with Hot Swap Cases

More of a specific use case. So doesn't have some of the nicer features that you see in cases marketed more for gaming. But I got this for double duty, to hold a lot of harddrives and maybe be able to play some games. Be sure to read the specs/manual. Not all CPU coolers will fit. I did use a cooler that according to specs would not fit, but was very close. It ended up fitting, even though it was slightly oversized. So there is some wiggle room there. But it can get tight. Routing might not really be an issue since the sides are solid other than air flow holes, so you really won't see the "mess". My only disappointment are the Harddrive trays. They feel a little cheap, but are fine if you aren't constantly swapping drives. Would love them to be toolless, but they work for my uses. Case/setup was a lot quicker than I expected, even under load with the fans running high. No issues with the stock fans, but I might eventually replace with Noctua fans in the future. Yes the breakout cables are WAY to long, but the case seemed bigger to me for some reason so I pre-ordered the longest before I got the case.

I've been using NAS Servers for backing up my important photographs for my photography business. It is vital to keep all my info backed up properly as a service to my clients. I've used various NAS servers from an Acer Aspire WIndows Home Server to more recently, a home built FreeNAS server. My FreeNAS home built server has been pretty awesome for my needs but one thing was lacking, a good server case with hot swap-able drives on it.After searching through many different server cases, I settled on this one. The case arrived a day earlier than I expected. I installed a Sabretooth 990 FX Motherboard with AMD 8120 3.1GHZ CPU and 16 GB of RAM. The only downside to installing this motherboard was the placement of the SATA connectors. They were facing the back-plane making it a little difficult to install. This is something to keep in mind when picking your motherboard. Buy one that has connectors facing up on the motherboard rather than facing to the right.The back-plane for the hard drives requires two molex connectors rather than SATA connectors to power the whole thing. Make sure your Power Supply has them! You won't be using many of the power connectors for back-plane. This frees up using them for something in the 5 inch bays (possibly two more hard drives with an extra SATA card?)Build quality seems pretty solid and the case itself has ample circulation. The sides of the case bows out slightly which seems to give more room for circulation which is a plus when running 8 HD's in this case. I've only had this case for 1 day but so far I love it.

This case is great at doing what it’s built for, although it is a bit expensive for what you get especially compared to the price of other atx cases. Overall the frame is very sturdy other than the door which is plastic but it looks pretty cool so that makes it ok.

Well where to begin. Packaging I guess? Case came like 99.999% of cases I've ever ordered for builds. Nicely protected even when tested by UPS. I don't know why but UPS loves dropping/stabbing/rolling my computer cases around whenever they're the ones to deliver them. The boxes are pretty beat up and this was no exception. Looked like something tried stabbing it through the top. BUT there was no damage. Plenty of foam and the case was wrapped in that foamy plastic sheet stuff some makers use.I guess build quality and building it out next. Aside from the drive sleds everything is metal. I did find one corner near the power supply that was particularly sharp and dang near cut myself on it but other than that just nice metal everywhere. The front IO and USB cables are plenty long. I'm pretty certain I could route the USB cable out a PCI slot and back in and still reach if I wanted to. Just had to leave a larger loop of it in the back of the case. The hot swap bays while feeling somewhat cheap with plastic sleds without hard drives feel plenty sturdy with 3.5" drives install on them. Which leads into building it. Was alright. Somethings were annoying like where the Sata ports were on my motherboard and where the wire routing holes were. Prolly would've been smarter to plug the Sata cables in first before installing the motherboard but live and learn right? Other than that small hiccup there's plenty of space everywhere else. The wire routing holes could be lined in rubber like high end cases but that's just a niggle I can think of off the top of my head.Now onto performance. Some reviewers have stated that the drive bay can get toasty and indeed they are correct. In stock configuration. Transferring all my files to the raid arrays I had built with 6 out of the 8 disks installed sitting at 100% usage the temps did get warmer than what I'm used to. Instead of trashing the cage and cutting the holes in it I turned the top fan blowing air into the hard drive cages around to pull the air out. So bottom is pulling air in and the warm air that rises is gettting pulled up by the top fan. BAM problem solved temps dropped 10-15 degrees on all the drives. Other than that and with just the single exhaust fan on the rear your CPU and rest of the system can also get more toasty than what people are used to. Sadly I don't think there's a real remedy to this since the case only has spots for 3 fans and 2 of those are for the hot swap bay. BUT in my case it's not a terrible deal because the rest of the system will never sit at 100% usage for any prolong period. Just don't try to build a gaming rig in this, really really really bad idea imho.If you're looking for a server case that isn't a rack mount server case I don't think you can go wrong here as long as you understand that the rest of the system outside of the hot swap bay has pretty poor ventilation. And turn one of the fans around for the hot swap bay unless you're fine with high 30's/low 40's for idle drive temps. If you want a gaming PC case look elsewhere lol.