Hi Guys,
Very sorry for my uninformative first post, and for the delay in a follow up.
I'm going to answer some quick questions asked and then describe the case as I see it. Later I will post more ( better, I hope ) pics of it.
source: I got the case directly from the manufacturer ( YU Technologies, the one that is posting them in alibaba.com. alibaba.com was also how I found them ).
When: ordered two weeks ago, received last week.
Price: more than 100USD and less than 200USD. I am very sorry but I wont post the exact price that was made to me, not because I have been asked to do so, but because:
- the sample I received was sold to me as "with some scratches". it is not new, so it's not what one would normaly receive.
- I'm getting this as a sample, on the permise of a bigger order if it passes our tests.
- I have no idea if the manufacturer will be selling this on a per unit basis, and as such, it would be unfair to post here the price that an actual reseller would get.
Price2: besides the case price ( power supply included ), I had to pay about 140USD for shipping via DHL, and about 140EUR on customs taxes. Shipping price is on par with a fast DHL Service from China ( very expensive ). I have no idea if the manufacturer offers other shipping services. Usually, when purchasing big orders, it's up to the buyer to send a courrier of choice to the factory. Also, regarding taxes, in my country, taxes are deducted over everything you pay, including shipping, plus other services like customs processing from the courrier service ( about 70 usd per shipping. this makes one sample very expensive, but dilutes quickly on an order with many items ). That's where the 140eur come from.
Price3: this puts the final price of this particular sample from 420USD to 520USD. Obviously, when bought from a reseller, the price would be much, much lower, because of much cheaper shipping and consequently lower taxes.
Price4: I haven't found, in my very, very extensive search for similar products ( 6+ desktop NAS chassis ) anyone with a similar product, nor anyone reselling this one. I know that this is a very big let down, because even when sourcing ( if ) directly from the manufacturer, shipping and taxes completly kill it's value. Having it for 300USD, delivered, would be in my opinion still be a good price for this chassis ( from a end customer point of view ). 420USD to 520USD is pricey, but the truth is that no one else that I know manufactures something similar.
Why: I work for a company that wants to make NAS products, and this case is a good match for what we are looking for. We are located in Southern Europe.
About the sample I received: it was sold to me as "with some scurfs and scratches", because the manufacturer was out of stock, and would only have more produced in february. As what I want to do is an initial evaluation of the case, some scratches would be of no problem. The case I received was actualy with very minor scatches on the aluminium cover. I had a hard time finding them. The case came without the power supply and without the internal 2.5 HDD bay ( seller mistake, will have them here next week ).
Review:
- The case is very compact. It appears to be made with that in mind. The front is "ruberized" and this gives and exelent touch sensation. It also looks very good. The cover is made from black anodized aluminium, and the internal chassis stucture is made from steel. Everything appears well made. The two 120mm fans included are from
www.pccoler.cn, with 3pin fan headers.
- the SAS/SATA backplane has two 4pin power connectors that power all the eight disks, plus two leds per disk ( one for power status and another one for activity ). These leds are activated by the power and sata data signal, so it's not an inteligent backplane ( it does not allow for blinking one of the leds in case of a problem, for instance. This is a feature that is normaly available on hardware raid cards ).
- it has no external expansion slot, so it does not allow for lan cards, or other cards that have external conectors. Usually raid cards don't have these, and for those, the card can be screwed to the case chassis, next to the motherboard ( the conection to the pci/pcie slot is made with a special ribbon cable, included ( pcie ).
- the HDD trays sliding mechanism is not perfect, but not that bad either. After being totaly inserted they apear to be secured, but I will have to test this with hard drives spinning to check for vibrations. My first impression, is that it will not make vibration noises.
- It has two buttons ( power and reset. they appear to have led's inside. I haven't been able to test this ).
- one usb port in the front.
So, to sum this up, I liked the overall quality of the case, but there are a few things that can be made to improve it ( some very easy and doable, others require a change in the product format) :
- add an external pci slot to the back ( very easy, just cut the hole ).
- add suport for redundant 1U power supplies. ( very easy, just cut a bigger hole, and add an adapter for smaller power supplies )
- replace the 120mm 3pin fans for 120mm 4pin pwm fans. ( again, very easy to change )
- improve the sliding mechanism of the HDD trays. This can be done by getting the case slides closer to each other.
- remove the system reset button. Usually a NAS doesn't have this, it's a dangerous button. The same effect can be reached by pressing the power button for more than 4 seconds, so it is really not needed.
- add a front slot for a VFD display ( like those from soundgraph ).
- and why not, paint the steel chassis in black!