Have a picture of X-Case www.xcase.co.uk?, please send it to us.
| Customer Service | 8.4/10   |
|---|---|
| Quality of website | 6.8/10 |
| Value for Money | 7.3/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 6.1/10 |
| Overall Rating | 5.5/10 |
By Guest. on 18th Jul 2008
| Goods purchased & cost | rackmount 420 case |
|---|---|
| Delivery | On time |
| Customer Service | 10/10 |
| Quality of website | 10/10 |
| Value for money | 10/10 |
| Overall value | 10/10 |
 Guest.'s recommendation | |
Good website, esay to use. Fast Delivery. Can't comment on customer services as not used
X-Case RM 420 - 20 Drive SATA II Hotswap - Inc Rails. Optional Psu's.Uk's lowest priced multidisk 4u
For a long time I have been looking for a case that can be populated with a large number of SATA drives. There are a few options out there but as soon as you pass 16 drives the cost becomes prohibitive.
The X-Case RM 420 is simply a corker of a case. The picture on the website do not do it justice. It is NOT one of these cheap tin cases it is a quality product. Whilst not being as well built as say a Chenbro case it is definitely not lacking. A few sharp edges but not razor blades you normal see from non brand names. It looks expensive not cheap.
The drive trays are sturdy, well made and a perfect fit. Four small screws (supplied) lock the drive in place and when slid in you can feel a positive connection with the backplane. There is no dust filters in the cages or case but there is probably enough room with a little bit of ingenuity to add some to the drive cages.
Connecting the sata cables to the backplane is somewhat tricky as the fan plate you can see is attached with so many screws you likely wouldn't want to remove it. Also the lowest SATA socket is so close to the bottom of the case and upside down so that the latch is basically inaccessible when attached.
The fans are strong and very quiet. The whole thing is as quiet as a few yours old PC. If your used to the noise of say a Dell 2U server you will be shocked how quiet this is. Saying all this your drives wont be cool. My 16 drives jumped from the mid 30s to the mid 40s on normal operation although the cabinet is not in an air-conditioned NOC so ambient is higher than i would want. I put this down to how densely the drives are packed with very little (but not no) airflow between the drives. Personally I can spin down drives so this is not a problem to me but if you are in a high demand environment expect heat issues.
Fitting the motherboard was a breeze the same with the PSU. It would have been nice to have room somewhere for a second ATX power supply but that no real down side.
The reset and power buttons are easy to lose. On the front panel beside the LEDs they are hidden away as two simple dimple switches. Very elegant in my opinion and since this case wont likely be turned on and off a lot i see no problems there.
The drives LEDs are a subtle blue and quite attractive. Understated cool rather than case modder Vegas bling.
Weight... this thing is HEAVY. Fully populated expect to need two people to move it safely. I'm not saying you couldn't pick it up but you would be in real danger of dropping it since its quite large.
The one downside of this case and this is a serious word of warning. The top lid is attached with 2 button latches and 4 small screws. After moving my case into the rack i couldn't get it open again. Eventually it took 2 people 2 hours with some serious giggling to get it open. This was caused by a metal latch being bent by an imperceptible amount during initial fitting. Personally I am removing the latch lips with a pair of tin snips and relying on a couple of screws (The lid is machined so well you could probably do without any form of fixing). If this case is being upgraded I would remove the latches all together they are basically a pointless area that can break.
X-Case supplied a load of stuff with the case (don't expect any instructions). The slide rails are heavy and high quality but its not immediately apparent how to attach them. Loads of screws were added and 20 black plastic things which for the life of me I cant work out what they are for. Also some weird looking metalwork which i can only assume is for odd motherboards or PSUs. Just for clarity no cables are supplied not that you would expect there to be.
The case i received is silver with a black front and not all black as you can see in the pictures (who cares i hear you say). Internal cable work with the case is well labelled and includes a couple of LED cables for NICs which personally i cant use. Cable routing is easy with 4 large holes under the drive fans. Plugging in the backplane molex is tricky if you have big hands but not impossible. Dependent on you RAID card or SATA mother board placements you will be able to wire up most of the drives with 50cm SATA cables.
All in all this is an excellent case. A few subtle changes could make it better but you wont be disappointed.
Things I would change for the next version of this case.
Remove the lid latches.
Make the fan plate slide in and out rather than being attached with 20 screws.
Present all the fan MOLEXs as a single connector near the PSU.
Add some dust filters to the drive cages
Invert the SATA sockets on the backplane
Two USB on the front face
More space between drives to allow ore airflow
I would recommend this again in a heart beat. Re-reading what i have written here a lot of it seems negative... don't let this put you off. This is an EXCELLENT case, a complete bargain that cant be beater even if you spend double the amount.
Pros: Quality case. Inexpensive. High drive density. Quiet.
Cons: Latching mechanism and temperature.
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