Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
This one was built in 2018, but I reused the name from a previous build. This is the 8th FreeNAS unit I have built for home. Eight systems in ten years... I made some mistakes along the way, learned some and I try to share some of those lessons learned experiences here in the forum. I have even put together some hardware just to test things out a time or two... Removal of the front cover (should you ever need to replace the 2x 80mm fans) requires that a total of 13 screws be removed.
This took some serious patience and planing to make it all fit but in the end I proved that it was possible to install with off-the-shelf SATA cables But aside from these two scenarios, you don’t need a GPU. A discrete card will only add more power consumption, noise, and heat to your system. It will also take up valuable PCIe slots and space on your rig. I’ve routinely built my NAS machines with around the bare minimum recommended amount of RAM, and I’ve yet to wish that I hadn’t. Last year’s NAS wound up being an exception because I wanted the machine to be able to host and power virtual machines. For this year’s NAS, I chose to buy 8GB of Crucial 2666Mhz ECC DDR4 RAM. While I’ve long advocated the use of non-ECC RAM in the building of DIY NAS machines, it made sense to use ECC since I’d already chosen to pay the premium of an enterprise-grade motherboard. Had I gone a different route with the motherboard, I would’ve been more than happy to use non-ECC RAM. Case, Power Supply, and Cables With the use of Silverstone’s SX500-G SFX PSU ( reviewed here), the installation of 5x 2.5″ HDDs wasn’t any easier.Sitting next to the Silverstone CS280 is my ugly betty, the Cooler Master Elite 110. It’s used as a Plex transcoding server and with an MSI GTX 760 ITX GPU and it doubles as a light gaming rig when guests come over for the occasional LAN party. Here we have the SFX-SX500-G power supply installed for a test fitting. For final installation, we rotated the PSU so the cooling fan is facing down. Either position should work fine as there is space above the PSU. With cable management being a challenge with small form factor cases we needed to use the space above the PSU for extra power cables. That is why we rotated the PSU fan facing down. SilverStone CS280 PSU Installed 1 Should you desire a little more horsepower for 4k transcoding, emulation, or the occasional gaming session, this is no longer a possibility.
The design of the case is largely unchanged with a well fitted hot-swap bay mounted to the front of the chassis as seen through the rear the case. The fans utilized are 3-pin units. We would have preferred here if the fans were 4-pin PWM units which allows easier control of the fan speed. In 2019, virtually every motherboard that one would use in this chassis has 4-pin fan headers.A feature that some NAS cases have is hot-swapping. The term means that you can take out and reinstall your drives, while the system itself is running. Again, whether this feature will appeal to you depends on your usage. If you need your home server up 24×7, then this may be an excellent thing to have. After: Not only was there a lot more room but also a lot less stress being placed on the SATA connectors, the SATA cables, and also the PSU cables. More often than not, the bulk of your storage will be 3.5″ hard drives spinning away. Be sure to look at hard drive specifications for NAS usage – Seagate Ironwolf and WD Reds are standard choices.
This is non-issue if you decide to go 100% SDD, which could prove quite costly given the current cost of NAND. While I opted for the Supermico A2SDI-4C-HLN4F, I liked that the Supermicro family of motherboards contained several bigger, badder versions of the motherboard also available for DIY NAS builders:Supermicro A2SDI-H-TP4F: 16 cores, up to 12 SATA devices, 2x10Gb RJ45, 2x10GB SFP+, actively cooled. While the case advertises that it supports a card up to 8.66″ (220mm) in length, it also needs to sit lower than 2.39″ (60.75mm) to slip under the bay. Great airflow to the internal components thanks to two well placed 80mm fans and a large intake vent. mini-ITX is a common choice for smaller builds, especially ones also meant to be on display. Gaming ITX motherboards can and do have a premium price. There are some cheap ITX boards out there, but finding one with more than 4 SATA ports may be challenging. While the design might be tried and true, it does prove to be problematic a little later into the review.
I'm also very much interested in this case -- I want one than can hold 8-10 3.5" hot-swap disks and two 2.5" SSDs, for a NAS (and eventually general-purpose home server) than can grow over time and last 5-6 years. Once I exhaust the 8 hot-swap bays (each of which supports either a 2.5" or 3.5" drive -- nice), I intend to install a 3-into-2 hot-swap cage into the top two 5.25" bays, something like the iStarUSA BPN-DE230SS .
Q & A
With the door open, we can see the 8x 2.5″ hot-swap bays, the front i/o, and a removable dust filter for the 2x 80mm fans. There are hot-swap variations of this case available if you wanted that. Otherwise, the L4500 fits up to fifteen 3.5″ drives, which should be more than enough for any home user. You could even try buying multiple cases in the unlikely scenario you run out of drive bays. If ever the metal-on-metal starts to become a squeaky nuisance, an issue that plagues a my old Lian-Li cases, it’s nice to know that this hinge can be lubricated. Two key specifications to look at here is the limitation of 65mm CPU Cooler height. At this size, a standard Intel Xeon E3/ Xeon E heatsink will work fine, but it is a tight fit for any aftermarket coolers. Next, is the PSU depth specification at 100mm, this falls into the SFX PSU size.
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