As per the title really, I've got £85 burning a hole in my back pocket and I'm torn between a new case for my gaming pc or upgrading my media server. My current case is some really crappy CIT case with fairly bad ventilation (although with my fenrir CPU cooler the temps don't go above 45). I quite fancy a coolermaster HAF922 to keep it all better housed. The pc I'm using for a media server is a single core atom 230 with an eBay special pci card to give me two more sata ports (only using JBOD). My problem is that I've already got 3 sata drives and a IDE drive on there withno more expansion slots to fit anything else to it. Add to that it's just shoved under the stairs with case and a couple of fans to keep the air flowing because my eBay special card doesn't spin down the drives while not in use. If I buy the HAF then I can re-house the server in the old case, but for the price of the case I could buy a matx G31 board and a cheap celeron board with 4 Sata ports and more expansion slots. Any ideas you guys have would be welcome
an atom does perfectly fine as a media server. youd be better off getting the gaming case - i have the HAF922 and its very roomy which makes for a neat build. you will also get the temp overhead to overclock with confidence. im also sure you can get 4 sata port pci cards
Yeah I have no problems with the grunt of the atom, all it does is serve files over smb and run utorrent/sabnzbdplus/subsonic/sickbeard so it's not intensive stuff. It's just that crappy pci card, every now and again I have to reboot it because the cards frozen and sometimes it won't recognize the drive when it boots I just can't find a cheapish sata pci card that will spin down the drives when not in use
I too have a HAFF 922, and while it is a really good case, I've recently been smitten by the CM 690 II. The HAFF may have better cooling; but the 690 is quietly understated. Also the 690 is £77; roughly the same price as the HAFF. Just my thoughts.
i did 2 pc builds at work using the 690 II - they are good cases, but the cable management is a little tricky. whereas the HAF i have at home is so vast the cable management was a breeze.
only 62 pounds with great cooling and was recommended by bi-tech and got custom pc premium grade http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Xigmatek-UTGARD-Pure-Black-Gaming-Mid-Tower-Case-w-o-PSU
Looks like I'll be doing the server up, my sata card died last night. Every time I try to boot the pc with it in it refuses to recognize the onboard IDE channel (which my boot drive is on). So unless I can find a cheap (very cheap) sata pci card I might as well buy a mobo with four sata ports and more expansion slots