Any Case Similar To Fractal Design NODE 304 Black for microATX?

[Faluzure]

I think out of this build, the case is giving me the biggest trouble.

I only want it to support around 6 drives. According to other reviews, the Fractal Design NODE 304 got great reviews (good build, cooling, ample space), but it only supports Mini-ITX!!!

The motherboard I'm going for is the SuperMicro X10SLM+-F.

I did find the Lian Li PC-V354, but the footprint on that is kind of big. I don't want it too small where I run into heat issues, but I don't want it too big either.

Any suggestions? The Fractal would have been awesome if the motherboard would have fit.

Or actually... I could swap out the motherboard for a Mini-ITX one. I just chose the SuperMicro based on the hardware recommendations. Seems there's lots of nice cases for Mini-ITX. But I'm cautious about the Intel Atoms, which is another one recommended here. According to the unRAID community, there have been quite a few failures on the Atom boards (particularly the ASRock ones).

 

[Fraoch]

Any reason the Fractal Design Node 804 wouldn't work? It's similar, just bigger (mostly wider). It's got a separate compartment for hot components - the PSU and the hard drives, with separate cooling in each compartment.

 

[Faluzure]

Any reason the Fractal Design Node 804 wouldn't work? It's similar, just bigger (mostly wider). It's got a separate compartment for hot components - the PSU and the hard drives, with separate cooling in each compartment.

By golly man. I think you saved my life. It's around 100$. Much cheaper than a Lian Li. I liked the 304 because it was around 80$.

Thanks!!

 

[Fraoch]

LOL, no problem! :)

I think in retrospect it's what I should have gone with. The case I got is ENORMOUS and the open top makes it loud. I do like the hotswap bay though, and that wouldn't work in this case.

I have the Fractal Design Define R4 for my desktop, it's a fantastic case and I wouldn't hesitate to get Fractal Design again.

 

[Faluzure]

LOL, no problem! :)

I think in retrospect it's what I should have gone with. The case I got is ENORMOUS and the open top makes it loud. I do like the hotswap bay though, and that wouldn't work in this case.

I have the Fractal Design Define R4 for my desktop, it's a fantastic case and I wouldn't hesitate to get Fractal Design again.

Actually, speaking of the Define, what's your opinion of using that as a NAS case? I saw that it was the same price as the 804. I know it's a tower, but since you own one, I trust your input.

 

[Fraoch]

Actually, speaking of the Define, what's your opinion of using that as a NAS case? I saw that it was the same price as the 804. I know it's a tower, but since you own one, I trust your input.

I couldn't use it with my hotswap bay as it needs ventilation from the front and the R4 has a door. But...

I was considering it when I was planning my FreeNAS server. It's a great case. It's silence oriented with sound-deadening material in the panels but it has good ventilation all the same:

• two 120 mm/140 mm fan mounts in front
• ventilation slots on the sides of the door so the fans won't be choked off when the door is closed
  
• one 120 mm/140 mm fan mount in back
• a fan controller for 3 fans

There are also fan mounts for the side, bottom and top but those aren't relevant for a server. Fortunately the top opening is covered by a sound-deadened panel. I'm using mine with two 140 mm fans in front and one 140 mm fan in the rear. This ensures more air in than out, resulting in positive pressure and keeping dust out of the case. The fan filters help here too, and they're all easily removable for cleaning. The included fans are good but 3 X 140 mm Noctuas would be a nice, if expensive, upgrade.

Those front fans blow right on to the hard drives, although the drive cages are in the way - this is one of the reasons I got the hotswap bay.

It's good in terms of cable management - all the cables can be routed behind the motherboard. The power supply is bottom-mounted like most modern cases and the power supply fan's intake is underneath the case, which is how it should be.

About the only real gripes I have with it are:

1. Laser-like bright blue LED. There's only one, so you have to decide between power and HDD, and it's blinding.
2. No case speaker, but the Supermicro board you're looking at has one mounted on it.
   
3. SSD mounts - if you do decide to use one, that is. They're underneath the motherboard which is fine but the screws will be covered by the motherboard. If you ever need to take the SSD out, you have to take the motherboard out first.

It's bigger than the Node 804 - taller for sure, but maybe a bit narrower.

For a while I was going to go with it for my FreeNAS server.

Here it is with my desktop build:

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/Fxf8TW

Also for comparison is my FreeNAS build:

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/QWr7YJ

My FreeNAS case (Phanteks Enthoo Pro) is gigantic. Cable routing is excellent as you see, better than the R4 I have to admit. But it's much noisier.

 

[Faluzure]

SWEET. Thanks man. I really do appreciate your time. Excellent write-up.

This makes my life much easier.

One last question. You're doing RAID-Z2 with 4 x 2TB drives, meaning you only have 4 TB of usable space. Have you filled that up yet since you've built the server? I'm definitely doing RAID-Z2, but am contemplating going with 3 TB drives instead.

 

[Fraoch]

One last question. You're doing RAID-Z2 with 4 x 2TB drives, meaning you only have 4 TB of usable space. Have you filled that up yet since you've built the server? I'm definitely doing RAID-Z2, but am contemplating going with 3 TB drives instead.

I've only put 300 GB on it so far and that's backups for one Linux machine and 3 Macs. I don't see it getting too much bigger than this as I don't have a lot of media files. I'll have general storage files (photos, work documents, etc.) but I think I'll still have plenty.

If I did have a lot of movies or downloads then it would get restrictive for sure.

BTW you have to let us know which case you decide on. I'm curious.;)

 

[Faluzure]

Thanks Fraoch, for all your help I just pulled the trigger yesterday. I ended up with the 804 case. Newegg had a $20 off sale on it, making it $89.99. Which was a steal. Plus, Newegg also had the Crucial Memory for $20 off as well.

In the end, I ended up with:

Fractal Design Node 804 Case
SuperMicro MBD-X10SLM+-F-O Motherboard
Intel Core i3-4130
Crucial 2 x 8GB 1.35V ECC DDR3 1600
4x Western Digital Red 3TB WD30EFRX (plan on RAID-Z2)
SeaSonic SSR-550RM
3x Rosewill RFX-120 120mm Case Fans
2x SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB USB Drive (Keeping one for backup)
APC Back-UPS 725 Broadband UPS (Provided from work surplus, just had to buy the replacement battery)

Too bad tax owned me on everything.

 

[Fraoch]

Sounds good!

 

[Faluzure]

Sounds good!

Well... my weekend was shot. I got all the items except the case last Friday. Then I started putting it together after my wife & baby went to bed on Friday night. After connecting everything (minus the drives), I attempted to power on the case. When I flipped the switch on the PSU, the motherboard lights came on, however, the "LE6" LED was red. Pressed the case power button, nothing. No reaction from the fans or anything. Took everything apart to try again, but with only the CPU, memory connected. Same red LED. Had to go to Supermicro's website to see what LE6 meant. Found that it was some sort of power problem.

System Power has a problem (Power Failure). Normal operation is green.

So.. I was thinking, uh oh.. maybe it's the PSU. So I took apart the PSU from my main gaming rig.... since I know that PSU works. I forget which kind it was exactly, but it was rated well. Plugged it up to the Supermicro, same red LE6 LED.

Now.. I've built tons of computers before... so I've seen issues where that possibly the case is shorting out the motherboard or something. So I took the motherboard out and set it on a cardboard box so that it has absolutely zero contact with anything metallic. This time, I unplugged the fans and just left the CPU & memory connected. With both CPUs, the same scenario happened.

I did have an issue once upon a time when building my gaming rig where the motherboard pins were bent. I double-checked/triple-checked the pins after taking off the heatsink/fan/cpu. They are all straight with no damage. I know that the i3-4130 is compatible with the motherboard, but even if it wasn't, at the lowest common denominator, the fans should at least spin when I power on the motherboard. But that wasn't happening.

I emailed tech support Friday night, but they were long closed. Rather than waiting until Monday (today) to try & talk with them, I just processed an RMA with Newegg and shipped it on Saturday.

Sigh...

 

[Fraoch]

Sorry to hear that!

It really sounds like a problem with the motherboard - you seem to have diagnosed it correctly.

 

[cyberjock]

Of course you failed! With a name like Faluzure can you expect anything less?

Yes, I had to go there. ;)