Silverstone Technology RM43-320-RS 4U 20-Bay 2.5" / 3.5" HDD/SSD rackmount Storage Server Chassis with Mini-SAS HD SFF-8643 12 Gb/s Interface, SST-RM43-320-RS

I had a Fractal Define 7 XL that had 18 hard drives installed. I needed more room in my server rack, so I bought this horizontal 4u case and transferred all hardware to it. I was able to install a GPU, 1x Raid card, and 1x SAS expander. The SAS expander and raid card connected to the Silerstone backpane over SAS SFF-8643 toSFF-8087 cables. Was able to restore all my RAID arrays on 18 drives even though I was now going through the backpane in the case. It's actually 5 different backpanes, by the way. Each backplane has two molexes, but only one is required per backplane. The second one is for redundant power from the second PSU if you use one. The fans are 128x38mm wide. Typically, consumer case fans are only 25mm wide. However, I was able to fit 3 Noctua 128mmx25mm fans in place of the 38mm ones easily, but I couldn't use the 4pins on the Noctuas in the "hot swappable" ports. They seem to have keyed the connector slightly different than typical. However, the backpanes in the case have about 10,000 fan headers, so I was easily able to just plug it into one of those and it's still "hot-swappable". I'm seriously wondering WHY there is so many 4pin headers on the backpanes. Jesus. Could have easily lived with less so you didn't need 2 molexs, but oh well, it's cool. I replaced the included fans, because they are very loud. They put out like a jet turbine, but were a little too loud for my liking (typical high performance server grade fans). Sticking some Noctua ones in their place has made it silent. I'm keeping an eye on SSD/HD temps, and so far so good. The case will only support a heatsink 148mm tall. I could not use the Noctua NH-D15 I had in my Fractal case. I bought a Noctua NH-D12L and it fits very nicely. Temps are fine. I have purchased server cases from other brands before and in comparison, this one is very nice. Silverstone almost always produces good products and they always have weird parts, too, if you need them. (Picture has one bad drive in it. Showing up a red led to indicate it's bad. Was just testing that)

I have been looking for years for an upgraded chassis like this with 20+ bays. Everywhere online points to old supermicro or chenbro cases. Which are either impossible to find now, way to expensive for what it is, or wont fit more consumer grade hardware (ATX psu). Norco has bad reviews. 45drives is out of their minds with cost. So that leads me here. FINALLY a company making NAS cases for the pro-consumer market. So far everything is in and running great. Things to note- The stock fans are airplanes so consider noctua industrial fans if that matters to you, yes the average Temps went up a few degrees but still well within limits. Backplanes use a SAS connector, you will need an HBA. I picked up a used one on ebay for around $130 The drive trays are metal, so consider using something like kapton tape to insulate them as the drive PCBs on the drives are VERY close to touching them, at least with western digital drives.

Usually I try and buy Silverstone chassis when i'm looking for a nice aluminum / solid build. I've built HTPCS and numerous servers out of them and look forward to new designs in the future. With continued expansion of data storage in my homelab I decided to give this chassis a chance. There's a bunch of things they've done well with this case, but there are just as many issues that I ran into. So i'll just put pros and cons and let you take from it what you will. PROS: * Pricing - It's competitive, though more expensive than some of the other competitors, I would argue it's likely to be more sturdy and most importantly I believe the backplane will be more reliable. * Spacious motherboard cavity - allows for cabling without a super cramped feel * Sturdy Construction - The unit is built well for chassis in the price range. While some enterprise products are more robust they're also multiples in cost. This is perfect for homelab, small business use. * Relatively quiet - The system is very quiet compared to others in this category, the three pwm fans are a good touch. * Caddies are solidly constructed CONS: * When plugging in your molex connectors into the chassis it becomes a tight fit with placement of the fan (see pic). * Front panel (power panel) constantly tried to pop off (Sticker / label covering). * Rails - These just plain suck. I've had them on other cases and thought they were fixed, they're not. They jam and if you aren't careful you'll find hundreds of bearing sized steel balls all over your rack and floor. That's no bueno! * No rear fans included - This may actually be neutral. It's possible that the existing fans push enough space out of the perforations * Rack Screw - The post screws for the rack had a lot of imperfections to include metal stamping debris stuck in the heads. Two screws were this way fortunately there were two extras and it balanced out. * Rails are on bottom of chassis not middle - this may not be a true con, but i've never experience this sort of placement and I wonder about balance / stability. I'm sure it's noted her but make sure not to connect more than one backplane to a single PSU cable. In my case 4 molex cable from the power supply (each with 4 plugs, only two used) because the backplanes are actually pulling power for 4 drives. Ultimately I'm returning this case due to the bad rail system and the issues that it poses in my installation. If Silverstone redesigned their rails and maybe adjusted the backplanes / provided whips to put the plugs into the main cavity, I would consider brining one of these back into use.

This case is pricy, but I love the Hot Swap functionality and the extra room.

The case arrived in perfect condition. Expensive but worth every penny. It replaced an Innovision 4U 15 disk server rackmount case that was difficult to work with that had internal disk mounting. Cable management was impossible and a nightmare. Silverstone case is easy to work with and has plenty of room for cable management. I love the backplane and the ease of basic plug and play for power and data. Running Unraid on an AMD 7950x and a GIGABYTE board. This case has great cooling and all disks run around 27C to 37C under load. It is one good looking server chassis under power.

I bought two of these 4U Server Chassis. I own RM22-308 Silverstone that are 2U but I wanted more drive space to use bigger cooling fans so Server can run quiet. I installed 1st server without issue. When I installed 2nd server I could not get it to slide into rail on the right side. When I looked at it closely I could see bearing rail was damaged. I have used Silver Stone rail kits on my RM22-308 and they are great quality. The rail kits that came with this server does not seem to be as good. I just sent an email to Silver Stone and will wait for reply. Update. Contacted Silverstone by email and they sent me an RMA Form and I filled out I sent in. I will give an update on when I receive Rail Kit. I have built one server so far and I love this 4U Server.

I have 2 of these now, great cases, plenty of room, only annoying thing is needs 10 IDDE connectors, that means converting so SATA to IDE on most ATX powers supplies, so plan ahead. Only other minor thing is not screw-less drive installation, gets tiring after doing 80 screws.

To start with, overall, I do think the case is worth the $850-900 they are asking for it, but mainly because they seem to be the only ones offering a decently functional chassis that can hold 20 HDD's, and it is a decently solid case. That said, there are some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed: 1. The backplanes... this is the big one to me, out of all of the issues, this is the biggest oversight in my opinion. It uses old school (think IDE hard drive 4 pin) Molex LP4 connectors, and not the more ubiquitous SATA connectors to provide the power for the backplanes. There are (5) backplanes, and each one requires (2) of them, for a total of 10! Either, they should provide (2) custom cables that can provide the power connections to one of the power connectors on each backplane, and/or at least switch over to the SATA power connectors that are much more common on modern power supplies! 2. The hot swap fan chassis/shrouds. They are quite fragile, and crack easily at the screw points if you have to either tighten the screws or replace a fan. I broke 3 of the screw tabs when I was replacing the fans with some Noctua iPPC-3000 fans that move basically the same amount of air in a MUCH quieter package! 3. The fitment of the hot swap fan assemblies leaves a lot to be desired, every time I wanted to pull the fan, I had to fight to get it to release, because the squeeze latch tab would keep catching, and I would have to rock the fan module to get it to release. 4. The hot-swap connector for the fan is NOT a standard computer chassis fan connector. It looks like it at first glance, but then if you look at it closer, you'll see that the "keying" on it is different than a standard computer chassis fan, making it so you cannot use a standard case fan connector with the mounted plug (in the end, that doesn't matter to me, since I ended up pulling the entire bracket out anyways, and mounting my Asus Ryujin II 360 AIO liquid cooler using a different bracket that allows me to properly mount everything up) 5. The Slim ODD bracket. The recessed tabs are too tall to properly allow you to screw it down, the holes just won't line up unless you take about 1/8 of an inch off the top of the tabs (which is pretty hard to do considering that they are about 2 inches inside the bracket!), but fortunately, I was able to make that work by at least getting the 2 screws on the outside holes, and then using a piece of foam to pin the drive in place on the other side. 6. The amount of loose chassis screws! I had to tighten down probably close to half of the chassis screws because they were half backed out and loose! One caveat to be aware of, the USB3 connector for the front panel is a friction fit, with the molded "hooks" style, so when you connect it to the motherboard, it does really wedge itself into the pin housing, and be VERY careful if you do need to remove it afterwards, probably by slightly rocking it side to side, and possibly CAREFULLY using a small flathead screwdriver to open up the housing just a little bit, otherwise, the pin housing might come off the motherboard with the cable connector! (it did it to me, thankfully, I was able to carefully put the housing back onto the motherboard pins with no apparent damage to the board or pins) . Also, and this is quite minor, but figured it should be said, the case does not come with the speaker, so if you want to be able to hear the POST beeps, make sure either your motherboard has one built in (or provides one in its kit), or order one. I have not messed with the rails yet, so I have no opinion on them yet, I will update if they either impress me or piss me off, otherwise, they're probably just whatever and I won't bother updating about them.

The shell is definitely nice but the backplanes will not make an HDD or SSD work, seems to be a power issue (not related to PSU, tested that) and hard drives will spin up if I do not use the backplane so not an HDD issue either. Backplanes have an orange indicator light when the hard drives are in, and that’s it.