NORCO RPC-470 Black 4U Rackmount Server Case

Comment:
I have 2 of these, with a 3rd on order, 2 RPC-450's as well, and they do wonders for my smaller business, they're cheap, they do what they're supposed to do, and they work as advertised.The Middle row of 5 80mm fans are nice for moving air through the case, instead of just having 2 120mm's in the front.Compared to a SuperMicro it's a Honda Civic to an Aston Martin, it does the job at a fraction of the cost. The airflow isn't as ducted as that of the SuperMicro, which usually manage to move the air in a much more controlled pattern, but hey, these are a whole lot cheaper!

Comment:
* Removable Fan Board to accomade bigger boards, and drive layouts.* Space for a hefty EATX board* flush mount buttons and front usb port* Price!* Adequate stock airflow to manage LOTS of heat * No directions.. difficult to figure out how to get drive bays/locks/slides working.. but, only took a few minutes. Ɠ.5" bays come out towards the inside, five.25" slide out the front. * Chasis is not as strong as previous models The fifth norco case I have.. like them.. adore the cost. Just obtain one for a workstation, and you'll promptly comprehend the value of a rackmountable case.

Comment:
Completely appreciate this case, tons of space for challenging drives and its very sturdy. The sata cables that come with my gigabyte motherboards fit fine, so unless you have extremely brief ones it wont be a problem. Its also considerably less costly then any other cases with the identical attributes, i dont know what else i could ask of it. the small thingers that hold the challenging drive bays in are a slight paint but no large deal.

Comment:
Generous space, uncomplicated access and superior value. Holds 10 drives in rails that give a small space in between the drives for air flow. The usual quick NewEgg shipping.In contrast to the photos on NewEgg, it has five fans in the middle (good air flow). Has a mounting platform for the motherboard that in turn mounts into the case (easier to put it in with no flexing the board - very good design). The 3 standoffs you see in the leading left of last photo don't come with case (don't need them with new case design) - nor does it come with that wrench searching piece. I wish they went ahead and gave you two far more 80mm fans for the rear and two 120mm fans for the front (I purchased and installed them as there is space for them). No documentation on how to use the drive racks. If I didn't look very first at prior evaluations, I could see how individuals may well believe you have to get rid of the 120mm fans to get to the drives... but you don't. There is just a single tiny screw at the leading of each drive stack that you remove... push the clips and the whole drive stack slides out the front effortlessly. Nice style. Subsequent step up in improvements would be hot-swap style drive access -- but you'll pay additional for that. (RPC-450TH and RPC-4020). Do be careful when pushing the energy connector onto the middle fans' energy strip... it flexes simply and could break. Arrived in fantastic condition, on the other hand some of the screws holding on the front door had been very loose and necessary to be tightened back down.I did not come across any sharp edges when installing my PSU, motherboard and 6 drives (+ floppy and DVD drives).The space under the fans in the middle of the case is to permit cables to pass via... with the case so big, it was nice to be able to run cables straight from add-on cards to the drives (extra drive controller) without having to acquire additional extended cables.Even right after purchasing two 120mm fans and two 80mm fans to add to the 5 existing fans, it wasn't as loud as I thought it'd be... not that it mattered as it sits in my server room.I bought this simply because my original 4U case from 1999 had extremely poor air flow and brought on drives to burn out in a couple of years. This case has kept drive temps considerably lower.New case style doesn't have the large space below the motherboard that other individuals have commented on. It is like other circumstances now.

Comment:
It's Big. If you want to cram as considerably stuff in as you can, this could function for you.Packaging was minimal and technically not UPS-appropriate (less than a two inch crush zone) but my case arrived intact.Boxed in a box-in-a-box, and inside the inner box, packed with molded styrofoam on the ends only. The molded styro had broken in a couple of places. As heavy as it is, it has a lot of flex and 'play' in the joints. There are some very sharp edges. No documentation.As major and HEAVY as this is, it could be additional properly organized. The divider in the middle with five fans cuts into the usable space.The five fans use up adequate space for four larger fans, there is a strip of wasted space there.It's awkward opening the leading of the case, I had to push tougher than is comfy on the buttons, to open the top. The primary pic is misleading, this case is a enormous rectangle, the pic makes it look like it's far more square. Check measurements, I didn't.If this had been the correct size for me, I would have kept it, but I was a lot a lot more happy with the other case I got from Newegg. It isn't a negative case, but I was incredibly pleased to return it and get the other one, which was entirely a five-egger.

Comment:
The included five 80mm fans move a lot of air about. I was thinking about adding two 120mm fans in front of the HDD bays but I don't feel I'm going to will need to. It's below a desk in my office, the five 80mm fans are very quiet. Plenty of room in this 4U case. You can't see the activity LEDs on the front of the case with the door closed (normal position). If you open front door you get USB x 1, Power buttons, activity LEDs. Clearly not a deal breaker and I'm not even taking any eggs away. When I needed to add a couple of a lot more disks to my homes server I out grew my old atx case. This thing is holding 10 HDDs and moving a lot of air across them. five Eggs for being exactly what I was looking for. Superior build high quality, no complaints other than the Cons I mentioned which are fairly insignificant.

Comment:
Does it's job at a fraction of the cost of a Supermicro.Although not as fancy or well made it serves it's purpose perfectly

Comment:
Air Movement. four 80mm and two 120mm. Holds a full size motherboard and power supply. The challenging drive carriages are in backwards in my opinion! Creating replacing the drives hard. Mod! When I realized I could very easily mount the 2 120mm fans to the inside of the front door, on to the removable filter cover. This makes it possible for you to turn the difficult drive carriages around for considerably less difficult access to your drives. That 1 mod turned this case from 1 egg to 4 eggs.

Comment:
Rather nice 4U case, cheap, good. I use it for media server. Replaced all fans with noctuas to make it cooler and more silent. Very happy, highly recommend for someone on a tight budget and desire to get lots of space.

Comment:
Decent construction, LOTS of room inside. Completely no documentation, the handles are plastic, the standoffs don't line up properly for a mini-ATX board, the included case fans are LOUD. This case would function fantastic with actual server hardware inside.

Comment:
Built a bracket to add a Corsair H70 liquid cooler (works great but is now approx 7U tall). Lots of room for all components. The case is easy to mod and most of the components are screwed in and can easily be removed. Had cooling problems with my previous Tower Case but since switching to rack mount all over heating problems are solved. Not the best quality but for the price it's a good investment.Never had any problems opening the case, adding the two optional 120mm fans up front, installing any hard drives/DVD drives nor any problems with the mid fan bus. Setup was very easy and non-eventful.With all the extra fans the fan volume did increase but have it mounted in an enclosed rack so it's not a big deal.Once you switch to a rack - you wont go back!

Comment:
I purchased this case for my new media server. My main objective was to source out a decent quality case for the lease amount of coin. Most of the larger tower cases run 2 to 3 times he price of this case, and offer no additional functionality. I will be placing the finished server in a storage room and accessing it with 2 Asus O!play media players.I took the opportunity to install the 2 extra 120mm fans in the front and did a cheap build with a Gigabyte MB I picked up on sale here for $60, 2 GB RAM and a Intel E5300 chip. 6 - 2GB drives have been installed thus far, with a older 320GB boot drive. 750W Seasonic PS, and couple Promise SATA cards. OS of choice is Ubuntu with Samba.So far it's been an excellent purchase, and I would consider purchasing a 2nd if I run out of room on this one.

Comment:
Lets face it, this is not a great case, but their objective is not to make a great one but a cheap one that is good enough (that reminds me of Microsoft...)There is plenty of place in this case, and if the fan are in your way, or the motherboard too big, there is the item 48398 which is basically the same but without the fans.It provides 2 tray of 5 HD to which you can fix directly a 120mm fan. The fan grid can be removed from the disk tray, but then you won't be able to fix any fan there anymore. On the other hand, doing so allows you to insert  the disk tray in reverse position and emulate a king of cheap hot swapable disk tray if your power connectors are long enough.The brackets to hold in place the disk tray are really cheaply designed, but it is not difficult to figure out how to use them.A single documentation sheet would have made me understood everything there is to know about this case in 2 minutes instead of having to figure out everything by myself. * Lockable front panel doorWhat a joke! They use the universal 20 years old round computer 'key' that everyone have (if you remember where you put them!) Instead of having a fake lock, either provide a place for a real lock old fashioned lock (a cheap but effective solution), use a real key, or provide a way to keep the door closed without locking it. * Front accessible USB portUSB-1 connector, if you know well enough your specs to know where to plug the cables properly on the USB-2 pins connector on the motherboard.Finally, the recommended rails are the 20" RL-20 (item id 48448 at 40$). They are a little shorts if you want to work in the case without removing it, but they do the jobs (otherwise, there is the item 48449 which gives you 6 more inches if your cabinet is not too small).

Comment:
I love these cases. They are cheap, huge, rugged, and now available in Canada. This is my second one of these cases Ive bought. The first one came form the US 6+ months ago. Ive loved it enough to buy another, and will probably buy more as time goes on. Ive also worked with the RPC-450, and RPC-430 cases. All great products.Norco packages these things to survive even UPS's parcel torture. I shipped this unit with UPS because it was cheap, and it showed up with the usual signs of UPS's loving care. The damage to the box didnt even make it half way through the first box. The drive cages mount with tool-less rails inside the case. There are additional holes in the drive cages for reversing the cage as well. Just pull the cages out, remove the faceplate, bend the mounting ears for the faceplate out of the way, turn the cage around, and your drives slide in and out of the front of the chassis like a hotswap bay. Probably my favorite case Ive ever had the pleasure of working with.