2U Rackmount Case for Dual Mini-ITX MB 14" Deep

Let's get the bad out of the way first: 1. Included fans are crap. I would prefer a slightly cheaper price and no fans so I don't feel like I'm throwing away new stuff right out of the box. 2. The security faceplate isn't perforated. Again, take it off and toss it. Why not make it perforated? I guess if you are worried about someone hitting the reset or power buttons. But come on, it's a rack mount, the rack and the room should be secure. Just as easy for someone to pull the plug... Minor annoyances: 1. The hard drive cages. Just no. If you are going to put them there and use them, have as little metal as possible. Luckily NVME SSDs are a thing, and the boards I'm using have 2 NVME slots. 2. The plastic motherboard insulator sheets. I had to trim one right at the cutout holes so it would even fit. Fixable yes, annoying to have to do, YES. 3. No cable tiedowns for cable management. With that out of the way, this is still an awesome chassis/case and worth 5 stars. 2 ITX systems in a 2U form factor. Yes thank you very much. I'm running dual Minisforum BD795i SE boards. I replaced the 80mm fans with Arctic 5000RPM (P8 Max). I used Arctic P12 Pro fans for the CPU coolers. Quiet? Not at all. It's a server... Pros: 1. Dual ITX in a single 2U rackspace 2. USB3 on the front. 1 USB-C, which is kind of an odd choice, but meh. I wasn't going to use it anyway. 3. If you take out the drive cages, there's hardly any restriction to airflow from the front fans. 4. It's made of an adequate gauge steel. Not too flimsy, not overbuilt. Just right IMO. 5. Components fit correctly. The Flex ATX PSUs fit, the Mini-ITX boards fit. Just like they should. 6. Finish was flawless, and I must admit it does look slick with the security faceplate. But I need that airflow. Final thoughts: This is a niche product for sure. You have to have a plan to utilize this case. But that's how it is with Mini ITX and stuffing things into small spaces. If you have the right plan for this case, it's amazing. It does exactly what I want it to do and functionally does it very well. I will likely build another one in the future.

Ultimately, this is a perfectly functional chassis, and for what I've been able to find the only one of it's type that's easily obtainable and not wildly expensive, but it is bordering on needlessly complicated to build in. My goal is dual Proxmox Backup Servers in one 2U chassis. Loads will be super light on it, I'm just picky about having IPMI on devices like this. While not ideal for this chassis, for this goal spinning rust makes the most sense, so while I agree with others that removing the HDD bracket is ideal, not for my use case. I'm not too concerned with temperatures, but I haven't fired it up yet to see (got a long weekend in front of me for testing, and still waiting for the rack rails) My notes: - The plastic sheets that are supposed to go under the motherboard are not cut correctly and I basically just had to remove them entirely. Unless you're routing something under the mobo the standoffs should provide enough of an airgap to not worry about shorting something. - Considering how many screws are included to hold the chassis together, the included screws are lacking. I used all but 1 just mounting the 4 HDD's with 4 screws each. - The power supply bracket fits, but not well, the Apevia ITX-PFC400W PSUs I got to go with this. Specifically, the standard PSU screws the Apevia included are too big and bend the bracket out of shape. Luckily I had extras that fit. - Speaking of the bracket bending, the chassis is fairly weak/thin steel. Not the worst thing in the world, but noticeable - Many edges are not deburred/rolled, so there are sharp edges - There's very little room for cables, even when using short cables, right angled connectors, etc. It's manageable, but I'm concerned about airflow - This isn't strictly a problem with the chassis, but the Xeon-D mobos I'm using don't have USB3.0 headers... and the included cables are so long I don't want to use a 3.0 to 2.0 header adapter as well, but you can't remove the USB3 ports. At least, when I tried, it felt like I was going to break the PCB the buttons and LEDs are also on. The USB-C plug is easily removed, though. I decided I don't care that much and just clipped the USB3 header cables off, might as well give myself what cable management room back that I can - I don't trust the included fans (they're probably mostly fine, but I wanted something nicer), and swapping them wasn't difficult, but it did make me notice... the foam included as an air filter is held in place with a bracket, and removing the bracket... the foam is just loose in there. When it needs to be cleaned it's gonna be tedious. - The front of the chassis has inlets on the underside, but otherwise there's no inlets for the front fans... the only place to put fans without further modification. I suspect most people will be building relatively gentle systems in this, low TDPs and whatnot, so it might not be too big of a deal, but I'm definitely going to be monitoring system temps for a while. As others said, if you will be building something more power hungry, don't expect to use the HDD bracket, upgrade the fans, maybe find/3D print some airflow guides, etc. - There is plenty of room around the HDDs themselves I'm not too worried about their cooling, but the brackets are more solid than I'd like and the orientation means it'll be blocking a lot of airflow. The point of this is the HDD brackets in my situation, so we'll just have to see how it goes. - To further harp on the HDD bracket design: You have to remove the bracket to install the HDDs, which I get, but I'd highly suggest plugging the cables in first, however... if you plug the bottom SATA power in you won't be able to screw in one screw to re-mount the bracket. In the second picture you can see it more clearly, but I had to spin the bracket in mine so I could plug in my 8 inch SATA data cables, but due to the lack of space on this side I couldn't possibly plug the SATA power in after the bracket went back in. If I used longer cables I could have both HDDs cables pointing towards the middle and it would work, but doing this also freed up space in that middle gap between the brackets... it's a tough call. - I want to give credit for it being a sleek, nice looking chassis, but I find that difficult because it has gaps at almost any panel meeting point that vary every time I adjust a panel. It's... fine, I guess, but I notice them. With patience I think I did a decent job putting it all together, though. I think if this was designed to be a bit longer, maybe 18-20" deep, it'd be a lot easier to work with. Even with all my complaining I'm only gonna knock off one star. For under $200, I have 2 machines in 2RU.

Exactly what I was looking for. Surprised how well it’s working so far. Wanted to include a picture of just 1 system installed to best show what a PCIE riser looks like. I bought a HAOYEXIN PCIE 3.0 riser 15CM. 15cm is way too much (probably 5cm would be perfect) but the only 5cm one I could find was 2x the price of the HAOYEXIN. Make sure you get a reversed riser. Easily (well, bit of force) able to bend the excess riser cable into folds so I could get the PCIE card installed at the right height. Figured $20 was worth the gamble. My Quadro P2200 is a bit long so had to remove the hard drive tray, but I don’t need them. If anyone needs compatible parts here’s what I bought— Power: Apevia ITX Power Series model itx-pfc500w CPU fan: Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 Great case so far, no complaints, no instructions (but not like you need them) 4 tiny side screws to get the top off (once you figure out which side is the top).

While technically functional, this case seems to have been built to a checklist of specifications without any design or consideration for how it would actually be used. The premise is strong: two independent mini-ITX systems in a single 2U chassis. In theory, this allows the same density as 1U systems with more efficient (and substantially quieter) cooling. However, the drawbacks are legion. First and foremost, the PCIe slot. Another review notes that the PCIe risers needed to use the provided slots are not included, and I will go one step further to postulate that they're not included because they don't exist. It's not like it's a standard height. The PCIe problems don't stop there. If you manage to cram a flexible PCIe riser cable in there, the PCIe slot is horizontal and goes over the top of the mainboard. You know, right where the CPU cooler would be. Or, best case scenario, right where the air intake for a very very skinny CPU cooler would be. If you install a PCIe card, you are essentially limited to 1U passive coolers designed for high static pressure blowers to force air in the front and out the back. Well, guess what ITX boards don't have. A half-height vertical PCIe slot would have avoided both problems. The case includes little plastic sheets designed to sit between the mainboard and the back of the case. They don't fit. The power LED wires are hardwired to a three-jumper connector that is not compatible with the Intel-spec case header present on most modern motherboards. The removable drive sleds are possibly the most well-made components in the chassis, with adequate vibration-damping mounts and machined planing for screws. But, of course, the screws needed to install/remove it are only accessible when it's empty, so forget loading them up outside the case and then mounting them. Also, if you do load them up, say goodbye to your airflow, because they will present the sides of the 3.5" drives directly against the fan profile. Which brings us to the fans. The four included 80mm fans are two-wire non-PWM; they use Molex connectors. That's absolutely wild in 2024. They have almost no static pressure. Which is a problem since the front of the case is almost completely solid, leaving only a narrow slit at the bottom for air intake. The fans can't do it. Lean a piece of paper against them while they're running; they won't blow it over. If you have low-power boards, don't need the PCIe slot or external drives, then you can technically mount two of them in this system, and it will work. If you need the PCIe slot, get 15cm PCIe riser cables with split ribbons, get a passive heatsink that orients front to back, leave the I/O shield off so air has somewhere to go, and swap out the fans for something with more static pressure. (Delta makes some, but even the noise-prioritizing Noctua A8 would be a healthy step up.) Or, better yet, don't use this.

I'm not going to dive into a lot of the other issues people have had with this case, because I had them all too. No, this case is not ideal for high-powered systems of any kind. It is however a really well built case with nice screws, thick metal and a "good enough" design that it's useful. I do have some advice for people actually wanting to use this case though; * The included fans are not great, but they're also not super loud. However, replacing them is a great idea. Good quality PWM fans are awesome. You can get by with these and they do cool OK, but good PWM fans with better static pressure will help here. * Remove the security bezel on the front. It blocks airflow and for my money it actually looks better without it. * Remove the drive cages unless you absolutely need 3.5" drives in here. Use M.2 for your storage as much as possible because otherwise you're going to have a bad time. * Motherboard fitment for Mini-ITX is incredibly tight. I got SFX power supplies but they don't fit with my motherboards (SuperMicro) installed. My advice is to calculate your power budget and get a PicoPSU to run your systems off an external power brick instead of trying to find that perfect fit SFX PSU. * For a CPU cooler, I got some good quality copper heatsinks for my CPU's (EPYC 3201's) and aligned them with airflow. I then put a 60mm fan in front of the motherboard pointing directly at this heatsink and fixed it in place with VHB tape. A little toying around with fan profiles and it works great. I'm not sure the value is really here. While the quality of the construction is excellent it didn't come with any rack rails, and the amount of money and time I've spend getting it where I'm happy with the heat of my servers has been significant. Now that it's done though it's really nice, the systems are quiet and cool and it looks really nice in my rack. Oh the only other thing I noted late in my build is that the connector for the front panel lights and buttons was installed upside down in the factory. Easy enough to switch but annoying as I thought something was wrong with my board.

I have been buying these for almost 8 years and just bought another 4. I have a customer that uses an ITX server in one side and a PC manager for the server in the other side. They love them as they use them totally disconnected to the outside world, they are small and compact but give them all the features of 2 full size units. These latest models have USB 3.0 front ports and cables which makes backups and imaging of these units a breeze and fast. I love them and would recommend them to anyone wanting a dual ITX Mobo setup.

This thing. This... THING... There's not really any other products out there like this thing. The truth is you're getting this because you know what you want to do, no matter how stupid, and you're going do whatever it takes to make it happen. Just like me. But speaking real, this thing is rather crummy. Wait, crummy? So why even 4 stars? Well, like I said, there's not really anything out there like this, so if you're looking to achieve a very specialized build for some inane reason - I'm still trying to figure out why I built PCs into this case - then your hands are tied. But rest assured, in no way shape or form is this a in any reality ever going to be a 5 star case, and if there were any competition in this extraordinarily niche product space, this would easily be 3 stars or less. The biggest concern here is air flow. Either stuff a (very) under powered CPU in this, OR spend the money on ALL the right equipment gleaned through an irrational amount of time window shopping only to achieve case airflow that is "good enough". Getting everything to work in mini-ITX builds is part of the fun, but a few points for consideration -First step is removing the drive cage. Use M.2. Don't think about it. Unscrew the cage. Throw it away. It has no place in this build. You will have enough concerns with airflow even without it. -Second step is unscrewing the front security panel. I'll get back to this one. -Motherboard. mini-ITX alone isn't sufficient. Either you're running a 35w CPU, or you're using a 'server' mini-ITX motherboard where memory modules are aligned with airflow. OR you're getting really creative. Guess which category your's truly falls into? -CPU cooler. What's your platform? Intel? This shouldn't be a big deal. Intel mounts are typically squad, you can mount a cooler 90 degrees. Oh, what's that? You're on AM4/5? Yeah, this is another reason to spend on 'server' mini-ITX, given all two of your options on the market. AM4/5 mounts are rectangular. Most coolers will align with airflow on 'server' mini-ITX boards, but on consumer boards? Heh. Get a Noctua cooler - their mounting hardware supports 90 degree mounts. The fun doesn't stop there if you're on a consumer grade board. -Memory modules. Get the most modest things you can find. No LED. no stacked heatsinks. The dimms are going to baffle airflow to your CPU, you want them as small as rationally possible. -ATX power. Consider picking up a 90 degree ATX power adapter. Oh, and of course you need FLEX-ATX power supply units in here. Don't bother with Modular units. They seem like a good idea, eliminating cables you don't need, but they will hurt more than they help, routing your rat nest directly in front of your front intake fans. This is very likely the time to consider breaking out the soldering iron and literally remove cables you don't need, and truncate those you do. Break out those heat shrink sleeves. -Case fans. I grabbed ARCTIC S8038-10K in a 4 pack. Stop fans aren't going to be useful for anything but the lowest power builds. Even with a proper 'server' mini-ITX board, you need something with some legitimate suck to push air through your case. These models are legitimately more than the front security panel on the case can handle. You remembered to remove it, didn't you? -PCIE. You need a riser ribbon. You need a riser, and you need to make damn sure your CPU cooler isn't going to get in the way. I legitimately can NOT recommend any system built in this case where you NEED a PCIE card be done with a consumer grade motherboard. The only hope your CPU has in this case is with airflow from the front fans. With memory shielding low profile coolers, and a PCIE card boxing everything in from above, I struggle to imagine even low power systems being anything but thermal limited. So you got everything? And you are sure this is a stupid project you MUST embark upon? My man! Have fun! For everyone else, this thing is a waste of money. I promise you, this is not what you are looking for!

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