The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Flelmo on 2025-01-02 14:40:32.

A follow up to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1ge3zyb/8_bay_alibaba_case/

At the end of November, I got a coupon for $20 of shipping from Alibaba, so I impulse bought this case (well, sort of). I actually bought it from a reseller on Alibaba, with a 300W Flex PSU pre-installed. It came in on December 30th, so I immediately swapped my NAS setup over to the new case, from my current Fractal Design Define R5 (which is now for sale).

My current NAS setup, for reference only. This is a non-critical NAS for me, I use it for media storage only, and if it dies, I won’t be upset:

  • i5-8500, Gigabyte B360M, 32 GB DDR4 RAM
  • HP 530T Dual 10GB Ethernet Card (this was a pain to get running, I had to do the tape trick on Pins 5 and 6)
  • Proxmox OS, with TrueNAS Scale running as a VM
  • 4 x 14TB Drives, 3 x 12TB Drives, running on a 9211-8I HBA in IT mode, passed through to TrueNAS

So, notes on the case and overall experience:

  • Timeline: 11/26 I placed the order/paid. I talked to them for 2 days, ironing out the PSU questions (see below) and verifying I wanted ocean shipping. The case shipped on 11/28, was on a boat on 12/4. It arrived in the US (Ontario, California) on 12/19 and was tendered to UPS. UPS delivered it on 12/30. I had to extend the delivery confirmation and ask the seller to extend the delivery confirmation as well.
  • The 300W Flex PSU was a $30 upgrade. I decided to go for it so I wouldn’t have to do research on Flux PSUs and hope to get one with enough power cables. When talking to them, they said the PSU was 220/240V only, and it would be an extra $13 to go to a 110/120V PSU. I declined, and told them to give me a refund for the difference. Instead, they “upgraded” me for free. When the unit arrived, the Flex PSU installed was rated for 110-240V, and it came with a European style plug on the power cable. I don’t know if they were trying something, or this is definitely a different PSU than it would have come with otherwise.
  • I paid a total of $165. $139 for the case with PSU, $14.30 for shipping (after coupon), and $11.50 for tax.
  • Communication was good throughout.

First, the good:

  • The packaging was decent. The box was oversized, thick cardboard and they used soft foam inserts to keep it in the center of the box. There was a hole in one side of the box, but since there was a large amount of space there was no damage to the case.
  • The case is solid. No real large complaints on the quality/manufacturing here, but thermals might be an issue over time.
  • I was impressed with the standoffs on the tray. They had aluminum standoffs built in. Both tall standoffs, then short standoffs where you could install (provided) brass standoffs depending on exactly where your motherboard mounting holes were. It says it supports ITX and MicroATX, I had a MicroATX motherboard.
  • There was a decent amount of space around the PCIe slots (4 provided). There’s definitely room for a decent sized GPU.
  • Installation of the hard drives into the caddies and case was fairly straightforward. This is not a hot swappable case, but I knew that going in.

Then the okay:

  • The accessory box was fine. I didn’t actually expect one, so the fact I got one was nice. They included screws for all the hard drive caddies, as well as stick-on feet if you wanted to use the case vertically.
  • The PSU is… Fine. It has the standard 20+4 motherboard power, 4+4 CPU power, another 4 pin ATX, 3 molex, 2 SATA, and 1 floppy drive connector. The molex cables were pretty short, however.
  • The display doesn’t really do anything. If I did it again I would get one without the display. It just displays the case temp and the fact the fans are running.
  • As expected, there’s not a lot of room. I’m going to have to go to 50cm SAS breakout cables from 1m ones, they’re just kind of bunched up in there right now.

Then the annoyances:

  • It comes installed with 4 80mmx25mm fans. The two on the backplane are attached to the display PCB via 3 pin cables, and the two on the back of the chassis are powered via Molex. So no easy way to do fan control. The fans on the back chassis are easy enough to swap, but the ones on the backplane seem to be much more difficult, needing to remove the entire drive cage to do so.
  • The tray is good, with two large captive thumbscrews above the motherboard I/O and the PCI slots to release it. However, there are also two small screws on the bottom of the case holding it in, which to me defeats the purpose of having the thumbscrews. Either you need to keep the bottom screws out to use the thumb screws only, or you need to flip the case every time to undo the small screws.
  • They supplied 2 Molex Ys with the case, but it was still a juggling act getting everything powered, especially since the molex power cable from the PSU was very short. The case wants 4 Molex for the backplane, 1 for the rear fans, and 1 for the front display. I’m swapping the back fans for motherboard-controlled fans to get around this.

So, overall impressions are good. I wouldn’t do the front display version again, but I’m overall satisfied (so far). I didn’t take any pictures because I was too excited to get my setup moved over.