[SGVLUG] water cooled cases.

[Brian Belgarde]

Agreed, 

Your points are well-made. It's still a consumer case, and without a
dedicated backplane like pro servers, you'll have a certain minimum tangle
of cables when you get to multiple drives. Still, most business users have
just one drive, John's scientists not withstanding. 

It also might be said that with multiple drives the wiring becomes a little
more difficult since SATA connectors usually extend just a little farther
than IDE connectors and these delicate wires can get close to the case
cover. If you use IDE cables, they have to be routed a little more carefully
because they have to twist a little oddly to get to the drives in this
position. 

The punched logo doesn't bother me, but the case cover is a trade off
between a clean exterior look and easy access to the 5.25 bays. 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net [mailto:sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net] On
> Behalf Of Mike Dillon
> Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 6:59 AM
> To: SGVLUG Discussion List.
> Subject: Re: [SGVLUG] water cooled cases.
> 
> I actually recommended this case to John Riehl off list. I would add a
> couple things about this case that I've found really nice:
> 
>     * Rolled edges on the aluminum to minimize cuts to the hands
>     * Rubber grommets on the hard drive trays
>     * Rubber fan mounts
>     * Large fan (120 mm) with a mounting point for a second fan near the
>       drives
>     * Lots of space
> 
> Things I don't like:
> 
>     * The punched hole "ANTEC" logo on the side seems like it would
>       compromise front-to-back airflow
> 
> I'm not so sure I'd say the hard drive trays take a few seconds. That's
> true when you have one or two drives, but when putting in the third or
> fourth drive, I found that you had to move other drives out a little to
> get access to the cables. It's not like it has a plug-in backplane or
> something, but it is still nicer than any other setup I've used.
> 
> Also, while I would recommend the Antec PSUs, I did have the stock PSU
> in my Sonata case fail. However, Antec was really good about the RMA and
> got me a replacement within a week. I actually ended up going out and
> buying a 450W Antec supply from the store in the interim and the RMA
> unit is in the closet waiting to be a backup if needed. The broken PSU
> still produced power when it was running, but it had weird problems with
> the PS/2 power-ready state and refused to come back on after I turned it
> off for a hardware upgrade.
> 
> -md