Chenbro SR30169 Mini-ITX Server Chassis

[Lawrence Lee]

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Chenbro_SR30169/

[andyb]

There are very few good points with this case/PSU.

Hot swappable bays being the primary, being relatively quiet the second.

Apart from this systems totally bizarre design and exceptionally poor PSU efficiency it seems to do it intended job reasonably well, but nowhere near well enough for me to reccomend this for someone who want a small home or business server.

Ignoring the "hot-swap" ability which under most circumstances is simply a gimmick this is a poor execution of an otherwise great idea. I can only assume that this case/PSU was envisaged for the many people who feel that NAS systems are very much overpriced and this would allow the end user to create their own 4-drive ITX NAS box.

A significant improvement in the cooling of the HDD "hot-swap" bays is needed as is either selling this product without a PSU, include a high efficiency PSU or a total re-design of this case.

Maybe Chenbro were trying too hard to make this DIY NAS box as small as possible and as such a few to many corners were cut in the process. If I were in the market for a 4 drive DIY NAS box (I am not) I would look elsewhere and would have no issue with buying a case that's a little larger so long as it is quieter and cooler, I would also have no desire to get a system with "hot-swap" drive bays as they would realistically be of no benefit.


Andy

[MikeC]

Actually, this is probably the 3rd iteration of a 4-bay mitx box from Chenbro. The first, going back some years ago, was maybe half the size. It was a thing lots of geeks lusted after for a while. We never got our hands on one, & no decent web reviews, so not much to say. The second, ES34069, which seems to have been recently discontinued, suffered from too much noise -- http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cases/ ... ses_5.html The latest version appears to be designed to solve the noise problem of the previous, which it does, but at the cost of bigger volume.

I don't see any problem with the temps of the HDDs in our review. Anything less than 50C is perfectly fine, there's bazillions of HDDs which do fine for years of 24/7 at >50C. Besides, all of the higher temps were only seen when the CPU was under ridiculously high load -- which rarely happens in a home server.

A simple fix for the fan/cooling issues is removal of the stock fan & shroud, and installation of the biggest quiet fan that can fit inside the case under the drive bays -- probably a 120mm. Then, all the exposed venting around the fan could be blocked off with aluminum tape (or some such thing). This would turn the case into a positive pressure box & likely improve cooling for everything.

[MikeC]

ERRATA: Ooops! By some odd error on our part, it turns out that the CPU in the board was an i5-4370S, a 65W Sandybridge, not the 55W G2120 it was supposed to be. Larry is working on correcting all the data and comments right now.

[andyb]

I don't see any problem with the temps of the HDDs in our review. Anything less than 50C is perfectly fine, there's bazillions of HDDs which do fine for years of 24/7 at >50C. Besides, all of the higher temps were only seen when the CPU was under ridiculously high load -- which rarely happens in a home server.

Up to 50C may be perfectly fine, but I am never happy if mine go above 40C in late November, as the ambient temperature could easily go up by 5-10C in the depths of summer which will lead to a direct 5-10C drive temperature increase or an automatic noise increase if fans are setup to compensate. This is probably me just being a bit pickier than most people. FYI I could not see the ambient temperature of the test-room.

A simple fix for the fan/cooling issues is removal of the stock fan & shroud, and installation of the biggest quiet fan that can fit inside the case under the drive bays -- probably a 120mm. Then, all the exposed venting around the fan could be blocked off with aluminum tape (or some such thing). This would turn the case into a positive pressure box & likely improve cooling for everything.

No doubt it would although I am still unconvinced by the whole design, that and the best price I have found in the UK is £118 after taxes and DOES NOT include a PSU, this makes it expensive enough (in the UK) for most people to forgo the size and hot-swap and use any number of mATX cases also saving a little on the motherboard in the mean time.

I have a very simple solution for a cool, quiet 4x 3.5" drive bay + 2.5" bay ITX box that could use positive pressure and have no issues with cooling and could also be hot swap to boot, all I need is some easy to use 3D designs software where I can create "components" e.g. HDD's, PSU, motherboard etc to precise measurements and build the case around those components.


Andy

[sm31]

A simple fix for the fan/cooling issues is removal of the stock fan & shroud, and installation of the biggest quiet fan that can fit inside the case under the drive bays -- probably a 120mm. Then, all the exposed venting around the fan could be blocked off with aluminum tape (or some such thing). This would turn the case into a positive pressure box & likely improve cooling for everything.

I realize it's now been a few years, but could you clarify how would mount the fan in the above scenario? Would it be horizontal (beneath the drive cage), as with the stock, or vertical?

[MikeC]

I realize it's now been a few years, but could you clarify how would mount the fan in the above scenario? Would it be horizontal (beneath the drive cage), as with the stock, or vertical?

Yes, a few years of brain clutter to wade through... I think my comment was to place a big quiet fan as an intake on the bottom front panel where the big grill is. The duct would be removed, of course, and maybe the original fan too. You'd have to monitor HDD temps if all 4 slots are used; don't let them get too much higher than 50C. Leave the original fan in place blowing slow if necessary.

[sm31]

I think my comment was to place a big quiet fan as an intake on the bottom front panel where the big grill is. The duct would be removed, of course, and maybe the original fan too. You'd have to monitor HDD temps if all 4 slots are used; don't let them get too much higher than 50C. Leave the original fan in place blowing slow if necessary.

I'm more worried about the HDD temps. But if I leave that fan in place, which seems sensible given, there won't be space for a 120mm case fan beneath it.

[MikeC]

I'm more worried about the HDD temps. But if I leave that fan in place, which seems sensible given, there won't be space for a 120mm case fan beneath it.

If this is the case, then a smaller fan on the front panel would work fine -- a modern CPU in a small server like this does not need that much cooling. Remember that the max temps we got with our 65W CPU were under artificially high CPU + GPU tests -- an absolute worst case. In actual use, such a load is virtually impossible.