Small quiet case to hold GigaByte GA-MA78GM-S2H + Shuriken?

Osamede · Post by **Osamede** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:13 am

If I want to use GigaByte GA-MA78GM-S2H microATX motherboard with AMD 4850e, cooled with a Scythe Shuriken and still have space for 4 2.5" drives, what would be the smallest and best quiet case to use?

amjedm · Post by **amjedm** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:03 pm

Do you mean 4 5.25 drives or the smaller 2.5 (as you've posted), just want to clarify.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:38 pm

you could fit 4x 2.5" drives in an Antec NSK3480, though you would have to get a bit creative with mounting them. Theres probably enough room to just stack 4 drives in the top 2x 5.25" bays.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:36 pm

While it might not be as easily quietable as the Antec NSK3480, you also might want to consider the Silverstone TJ-08. (See photos of case here.) Looking at the side-on photo of the case interior, it has two 5.25 inch bays and two 3.5 inch bays plus what looks like space to fit another suspended drive below the two 3.5 bays. With one DVD drive in the top 5.25 bay, that leaves you space to suspend 4 notebook hard drives. This case might be harder to make quiet, however. From memory, there is at least one system in the General Gallery with this case, so you might want to look there.

As for the Shuriken, that cooler is only useful for really small cases with the PSU above the CPU cooler area - typically micro-ATX cube cases. However these cube cases probably wouldn't be designed with room for 4 hard drives though.

That being said, if you are not including a DVD drive, you could use the Antec NSK1380 + your Shuriken cooler if you really wanted that small a cube case.

IMO, you are better off going with something like the Antec NSK3480 or Silverstone TJ-08 coupled with a better CPU cooler, like the Thermalright HR-01 Plus. You could probably run that particular CPU cooler passively, with only a rear exhaust fan and PSU fan in your case, which would then be pretty quiet.

Osamede · Post by **Osamede** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:47 pm

Went with the Antec 1380 in the end.

Would have liked to just go simple and use the Atom 330 dual, since idea is to build a simple server low noise and with 4 2.5" drives, but that Atom seems to be available on on boards with limited number of SATA and no esata.

Thans very much for the pointer though, folks - will be very useful on the next go round!