SilverStone Technology Premium Mini-Itx/DTX Small Form Factor NAS Computer Case, Black DS380B-USA Newest Version (SST-DS380B-USA)

I had read that keeping the drives cool can be an issue but I thought I could correct the issue by inverting the PSU to draw air out of the case and also using a water cooler and again reversing the fan to draw air out of the case (also water cooler greatly helped keeping heat out). It is tight build but that is what you get from using a small case and it wasn't too tough as long as you take your time and are neat. I had everything put together nicely and loaded my 8 drives and 2 ssd's and was I disappointed with the temp on the drives (all in the 40's and several peaking at 49). I was sick with disappointment, the fans were running at max and couldn't keep the drives below 40! So I opened up the case removed the drive cage and added a 6cm u-shaped strip of card board around the HD fans to force the air through the cage and the put everything back together. The results blew me away. Now all the drives stay in the low 30's except during a raid rebuild and even then I have rarely see a drive reach low 40's. I also moved the drive fans to MB control and now with light use the fans throttle back to near silence. Add a strip of cardboard around the fans and you will love this case or live with your drives in the upper 40's and hate it. I wish Silver Stone had included this simple modification but I am happy with my results.

Construction feels cheap with thin aluminium sides and plastic frontpieces. I was disheartened at this but it is surprisingly well constructed and solidly stable nevertheless.Positives+ Small Form Factor+ Plenty of room to work with (rare for SFF cases)+ Backplane that supports Hot-Swap+ Solid+ Looks nice+ Comes with plenty of extra screws, key and spare key, and drive labelsNegatives- Side Dust Filter rattles- Stock fans are noisy (replace them with 120mm Noctua Silent Fans and you can thank me later)- Designed with poor air-flow that makes half the drives run overly hot (can be easily resolved by adding a small divider made of cardboard or plastic to direct the airflow. A simple search will offer plenty of how-to's. After adding the divider it kept consistently low temps even under heavy usage)My FreeNAS build (48TB/32.7TB Raid-Z2) has the following (older) components in this case:ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX Server MotherboardIntel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell 3.3 GHz LGA 1150 80W BX80646E31230V3 Server Processor2x Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 1333 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory8x HGST Ultrastar He8 6TB 7.2K RPM SAS 6Gb/s 128MB-Cache Enterprise Data Center HDD (in Raid-Z2)1x SAMSUNG 840 EVO 240GB SSD (ZFS ZIL/SLOG)SILVERSTONE ST455SF-V3 SFX 450W 80 Plus Bronze Active PFC Semi-Fanless Power Supply2x Noctua NF-A12x15 PWM, Premium Quiet Slim Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown)With my components It is very silent even in a quiet room. You can only can hear it when it performs scrubs on the drives.This case has issues out of the box and requires modifications; such as adding the makeshift divider to direct airflow, replacing the fans with more powerful and silent fans, but in the end it makes the best choice for a medium sized NAS. If you need any more bays you need to look at rackmount cases.If wishes were horses I just wish it were the same height as the Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Cases as I have this case sitting between 4 of those running VMWare ESXi atop my living room bookshelves.

This thing is cool. Its compact and has a ton of drive bays. I used this for a NAS setup. I used shucked WD hard drives, and they do not require the 3.3V pin hack when plugged into the backplane on this unit, which is a nice plus!As a compact case, there is very minimal room inside and its tough to get everything to fit. At first the backplane seemed to interfere with my LSI HBA card, but I discovered there is a piece that can be removed that allows the card to extend into the area where the backplane is. In my case the card was still small enough that the drive bay in the backplane is not blocked and can still be used as well. The case comes with several large fans but runs very quiet.

I recently moved my 5 drive unRaid installation to this case to save some space, save some power (old 80W AMD to new 30W Intel) was hoping that a case dedicated to drive bays would be properly cooled. Sadly, the airflow over the drive cage is poor to moderate at best. I had a 5-in-3 IcyDock previously and my 8TB drives - especially on the two outer bays, would idle in the 45-46C range, and creep towards 50C in operation. When I loaded this case I put the 5 drives in the bottom five slots, leaving the upper slots for expansion and hot spares. Sadly, idle temps of the center drives were in the 45-47C range. I've split the drives now, leaving a space between each of them, and the temps are in the mid 30s. It's functionally useful, but reduce the number of usable slots to no more than 4-5 drives.

This case is exactly what I was looking for. It is very tight and takes patience. The removable drive/backpane chassy is extremely helpful when adding components. I opted for an LSI HBA to connect all my drives, it would have been a bit more difficult connecting them to the motherboard. Great case! I am also not experiencing any noise or temp issues, and have the case a few feet away from my workstation.

This thing is tiny, and nearly impossible to work in. I have a SuperMicro ITX board and a relatively low-profile SAS controller card. I still needed to use the feature that lets you use a bay to accomodate an expansion card. Runs hot, super cramped, way too many compromises for the footprint.

Excellent build quality, tool free case. Lots of room even though it's designed for an ITX based system. Can easily accommodate 8*3.5/2.5" HDDs in the main drive bays. You can also mount 2 SSDs inside the case. Included fans provide excellent air flow around the case. You can also remove 1 of the drives to make space for a video card or other expansion device such as a SAS RAID card. For small media center setups or NAS, this case is perfect for the DIY crowd.

I paid 262.00 for this, NOT! a cheap case. You would think it would come without damage. Appears from the manufacturer as it was well packed and not opened. I was trying to remove one of the hard drive trays and it was jammed. When I finally got it removed I noticed a black connector (for the side fan) was wedged between the hard drive enclosure/tower and the case. The only way that could be is from assembly as you have to remove the hard drive enclosure/tower to get it loose. Not only did it compress/deform the connector, one of the hard drive trays is deformed. Had I of know this was a cheap case in disguise, I would never of purchased it. It appears I will have to repair the connector should it not work, and put a little heat to the tray to reform it. Something I should not be doing to a 262.00 computer case. Therefore 2 stars. I would prefer a new fan with a good connector and a new tray to make this actually a new product, but I doubt that will happen. I'm getting to the point that everything needs to be opened and inspected before accepting delivery as it is a major waste of time re-packaging, contacting Amazon/Supplier, shipping it back, and waiting for a refund or replacement.

The back plane supports sas !!High quality case. very sturdy.Very recommended.

The surface of the "new" case was covered by dust and scratches. That's not how a "new" product looks. Returned.

Using multiples of this case as external storage for my home built NAS server. Each case has 8x8TB hard drives and is managing to keep them cool without issues. I am NOT running a motherboard in either case, so that reduces heat quite a bit by allowing more airflow.