DARKROCK Classico Storage Master ATX NAS Computer Case Mid Tower with 4x120mm Fans, USB 3.0 Ready 10 x3.5'' HDD+3 x2.5'' SDD 360mm Supported on Top & Front Radiator GPU Vertically Mounting Black

I was debating on getting the Fractal Design Define 7 XL, but the price was too steep until I stumbled on this one. Made a good decision on purchasing this case, it has what I am looking for. I got the E-ATX variant of the case and comparing the dimensions with the regular variant, it has a slight difference in dimensions and seems to satisfy my needs. I have used a variety of cases including from brands coming from Cooler Master, Corsair and Fractal Design. I bought the case to assemble a home server. It is definitely quiet, and not loud. My current cable management is not bad. But, I do not think it will be pretty considering in future use of other storage devices. You can fit lots of drives into it. There is however a few design flaws. One flaw I noticed is that the controller that operates the case fans does not seem to have enough adhesive to stick to the case, not like you need the controller anyway as you can connect them directly to the motherboard. Not necessarily a problem for myself at the moment, but another flaw is having to keep opening the drive bays to insert HDDs or SSDs. Anyhow, the case is compact and for its price I would definitely purchase again when the time has me decide on choosing a case.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:I used this case to build my own NAS server, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. It’s sleek, spacious, and just looks so clean once everything is installed. The airflow is solid right out of the box, but I swapped out the front fans for a different style to better suit my setup—and the case handled it beautifully.There’s tons of room for drives, cables are easy to manage, and the overall build quality feels premium for the price. Honestly, this case made the whole process smoother and more enjoyable. I’m very impressed and would definitely buy it again for another project.Highly recommended if you’re building a NAS or just want something functional and good-looking.

While this case boasts of being able to hold a large amount of 3.5" drives, I find the mounting cages make it nearly impossible without having to put a large amount of strain on the SATA cables. You need a healthy mix of 90deg and straight plugs in order to use as many of the available spaces as you can. You can not use a 90deg SATA cable on any drive in the lower positions in any of the cages because of the lip that goes around it. The drive cage on the lowest level is pretty useless except to have a place to coil up all your cable slack. The fit is really tight.The cable routing is beyond lackluster in this case as well. The functionality of the cable management holes is not great because they aren't exactly in user friendly places. The drive cage covers one of them. Routing the front panel USB cable put such a strain on my mobo that it nearly broke the plug. The cable was far too stiff to route any other way than the way I finally managed to get it to go.Other than those flaws, this isn't really a bad case if you want good airflow and space to store a bunch of drives. It looks great put together, and other than fighting cables and plugs it was pretty easy to assemble for the most part.

I thought this case was going to be too big but it's a perfect mid size. If you're planning on loading up a bunch of drives this is will do the job. You need to install the drives in reverse, having the sata and power facing the motherboard side. If you are going to use a HBA then you need to use the SFF cables that has only sata. If you use the sata + power combo then it won't clear. That's my experience with the case so far. Other than that the cable management is great.

An awesome case that is the cornerstone of my homelab. Great expandability for adding more hard drives and surprisingly quiet 120mm fans in the front that keep your drives nice and cool. If you’re looking to get into AI, a full size gpu fits great in this case with plenty of wiggle room for plugging in cables. Decent enough cable management in the back of the case, but overall, great for the beginner homelabber who doesn’t want to have a massive server rack taking up space and just wants a simple, functional case that can hold a lot of drives.

My setup is a micro ATX board, a Radeon 6700XT, a 10 GBE card via PCI-e, a 750 Watt power supply, two 2.5" SSDs, and 6 3.5" spinning disks in a RAID configuration.First off, the 6700XT is a huge card - it extends well into the space occupied by the 3.5" bays. Since I was only using 6 of these drives, I decided to remove one of the bays. The most logical one to remove was the second from the top, but I needed a bit more clearance to install the GPU in the first PCI-e slot. So I opted to remove the bottom bay and put my GPU in the second PCI-e slot. This worked, but the fan rubs against one of the bottom-mount 3.5" bays, so I pulled it out as well. The 10GBE adapter fit fine in either slot, and was not a problem. To be fair, the description warns that large GPUs can pose an issue, so I was expecting this.Next came the 3.5" bays. Note that these are not hot swap bays (and they do not hide this fact), but be warned if you are planning to use this case for a NAS. I only needed to mount 6 drives, so the removal of one bay was not an issue. However, the 3.5" drive bays put the SATA connectors all the way to the back of the bays, and there is not enough clearance to put the back panel on, due to the thickness of the SATA power cables from my PSU. I had briefly considered mounting the drives backward in the bays, with the cables facing the front panel, but in the end, I have decided this is not the case for me, and will likely be returning it.That said, if I was using 2.5" drives, I feel like the SATA power cables would not have been an issue. I certainly do not dislike this case - it was just not right for my application. In total, there are 12 ea. 3.5" bays, plus 2 mounts behind the motherboard for 2.5" SSDs. Even with the 6 bays that I used, the cable runs are very clean, and it was easy to route cabling with no issues. I absolutely would recommend this case, but maybe only if you are using smaller 2.5" drives.