June 30, 200917 yr Hello there! I recently found out what unRAID is and what it's capable of doing - it just sounds too good to be true, but all I hear are great reviews, so I will very soon be building my own system! I've read A LOT of threads in this forum and have also done a great deal of reading in the wiki, so it doesn't feel wrong to post this question, trivial as it may be I've decided on the Gigabyte G31M-ES2L motherboard - it's cheap and the people on this forum who've tried it has nothing bad to say about it. CPU will be an Intel Celeron Dual Core Model E1400 + 2 gigs of ram. This brings us to the chassis; I like Lian Li's design and as I have nothing else to go on, I've settled my mind on buying Lian Li. But which? Most of their cases will hold ~9 HDDs and that should be enough for me (will be going size > quantity from the get-go) so this leaves pretty much all cases suitable at first - but what about cooling and noise? I'm picky and want the best of all worlds (small, silent, cool) but as one compromises the other, I think I too will have to compromise at some point My perfect case would be small, cool, and quiet; with this in mind, what chassies would you recommend (not necessarily limitied to Lian Li), apart from the 3 different choices for the MD-1510 (I don't need the 5in3's, so I'm looking for something that'll take up less space, but still stay cool and quiet, if at all possible!). ... come to think about, I don't really care about the actual design, I just want the build quality to be good and my 3 priorities taken into account
June 30, 200917 yr I have the CoolerMaster Centurion 590 with three 4-in-three drive cages (comes with one built in). Can get 12 drives in it, and it does a good job of cooling if you use a few 120/140 mm fans and seal unnecessary vents.
June 30, 200917 yr QUIET and COOL are primarily related to fans and airflow. Once you have selected large quiet drives, there is little you can do for cool and quiet apart from the fans and controlling airflow. I would advise doing more reading in the UnRAID Topical Index, Fans section. Quality fans positioned correctly make all the difference. It doesn't take many fans if they are placed carefully, and unnecessary case openings are covered (as was stated).
June 30, 200917 yr Author I've been reading some of the threads linked under that topic, but I haven't even gotten to the point, where which fans I get are relevant But what I'm really looking for right now is suggestions as to which chassies has the best airflow (= which chassies has most potential for good fan placement) and at the same time aren't too space consuming. And if it had some silent solution-thing, I really wouldn't mind I think I've read all there is to read about most of the Lian Li cases, but I can't figure out which has the most potential, so now I'm asking anyone who's actually tried one of them (how well does it absorb the noise?) ... or just have suggestions that meet my criteria, if that's even possible!
June 30, 200917 yr Author fitbrit, I just took a closer look at that CoolerMaster and it actually seems perfect! It's probably not that quiet, but I bet that can be fixed with a bit of insulation (heating up the entire system, though!) Out of interest, how's your setup? What fans are you using, how many, and where have you placed them? What temps are you getting?
July 1, 200917 yr I like the Lian Li PC-P80 myself. It's big, it's expensive but it has 12 exposed 5.25" bays for 5-in-3 mounts and has 140mm fans right up front blowing on all of them for great cooling. Throw 5-in-3 bays in there and you have 20 hard drives cooled very nicely and reasonably quiet. It'll set ya back a bit of change though. Primary reason I like it is for 20 drive capability with 140mm fans in the front cooling them directly.
July 1, 200917 yr Since you're partial to Lian Li, I bought the Lancool PC-K12B (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112191. It's the same case as used in the MD-1510 but without the 5-in-3s. It comes with one 3-in-3 HDD kit. You can buy more of the same (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811995036) for a total of 9 drives. I ended up buying 3 of the 4-in-3 (http://www.sundialmicro.com/Lian-Li-Expension-HDD-Kit-ex34nb_1975_1418.html) for 12 drive capacity. I'm really impressed with this case. Very well constructed. Removable motherboard tray. Lots of room to route cables behind the right side door. The front panel has a fan speed switch which (with splitters) will allow you to control the speed of the all the front fans very easily. I'm still finalizing the build but so far it is extremely quiet. All fans on low and all HDDs operating around 30C (no small feat in June in Houston). Hope to post pictures to the pimp your rig post in a couple of weeks.
July 1, 200917 yr Author Oh, that Lancool is actually way nicer than I first thought! And if it's quiet too, I think we have a winner Only problem is, I can't find a dealer in my country that sells this case, som I'm still leaning towards the Centurion 590 (I'm a sucker for the 3 front fans on both chassies!).
July 1, 200917 yr You may want to look at the Antec Nine Hundred or Twelve Hundred as well. I recently got a Twelve Hundred and it's great. I added another fan at the front and now have 4x 120mm fans blowing on the hard drives. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg34915#msg34915
July 1, 200917 yr Author Doesn't it kinda defeat the purpose of the airflow, if you place the HDD fans at the back and not front of them?
July 1, 200917 yr Doesn't it kinda defeat the purpose of the airflow, if you place the HDD fans at the back and not front of them? If you're asking me, all 4 120mm front fans are in front of the hard drives: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=12726&page=7
July 1, 200917 yr Doesn't it kinda defeat the purpose of the airflow, if you place the HDD fans at the back and not front of them? Not necessarily. But it's also not the best or coolest arrangement. Case in point, I have a coolermaster centurion 590. I have 2 120MM fans on top, 1 in back, power supply on bottom. So that is 4x120 MM fans pulling air through the front bays. I have 9 Removable SATA trays. without fans. The drives do stay relatively cool as long as I blow out the dust every few weeks. I did this to keep the fan noise down and for this machine and it does. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg20486#msg20486 If I had my choice today, I would go with the Antec 1200.
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