CHENBRO RM42300-F 4U Rackmount Server Case

Pros: Very simplistic design that actually works! as the other reviewers have said this is a quality unit for the price, the bays come out as a unit and slide right back again with no fuss, even mounting the motherboard into the removable tray came with no fuss, I have had 1 too many cases where 1 screw never wanted to line up correctly. I contacted Chenbro because as stated there is no option to order it with the 2nd 5.25 cage, they got me in contact with a retailer that had it in stock and shipped out the same day, cudos for them. As a side note in total even with over priced fans this case still ran me half the cost of previous builds. Cons: Only notable cons I have are that the case does not come with said factory option for 2nd 5.25 bay opening, and that the case as a whole is not painted throughout, would of been a VERY attractive bargain totally powder coated. Other then that the power and reset buttons are flimsy. Yes flimsy is what I would best describe them as, they are EASILY replaceable and generic sizes. Another con to some is the intensity of the front panel blue power LED, this thing casts a 4 ft circle on a wall 12 feet away, no joke it is THAT bright. Overall Review: Chenbro has a good thing going here, Hopefully they can keep up with the quality.

Pros: Plenty of space
Nice layout Cons: Included 120mm fan is really loud Overall Review: I looked around a lot for a case that would fit in an 18 inch deep rack that waslarge enough for a decent video card and this fits the bill. I have a gtx 960 in the case and there is a few inches left for a larger card and I think sli would be fine also. I plan on replacing the 120mm fan and adding 3 80mm, 1 for the front and 2 in the back, should be adequate cooling. If you want a rack case that will fit in a pro audio rack this is probably the one. Rails would have been nice but I can’t complain for the price. Great case.

Pros: + Compact & semi-modular
+ Sturdy
+ Lightweight, considering the above
+ Intelligently laid out
+ Cheap Cons: + One or two small design quibbles, see below
+ Alignment of parts is tight in some places Overall Review: It is pretty specialized, but there is almost nothing else like it out there and if you need rackable, compact and relatively light — this is the one to buy.
A couple things that really made me happy:
+ It is not tool-less, but Chenbro made it possible to strip this thing down to individual sheets of metal with a single screwdriver. That’s as close to tool-less as I’m looking for and better than most desktop cases which require 6 different drivers to make more than surface adjustments with thumbscrews.
+ This is not a luxury product, it’s a DIY server chassis for $100, but every frugal compromise was made in exactly the right place. My Supermicro chassis are slightly better built but for 5x the price and half the cleverness.
+ I filled it to the brim with workstation parts and whenever I ran into a problem and thought “nuts, I can’t wire / fit the part this way” I would look a little harder and realize it *was* possible if I was willing to disassemble things further than was initially obvious.
+ It has a surprisingly good air cooling layout. The 80mm fans are lined up well to match a 90mm CPU fan, and the 120mm fan provides good airflow over the PCIe area. The lack of open grating around the sides makes it possible to maintain static pressure in the chassis for pretty solid thermals.
A couple small gripes:
+ The motherboard standoffs, I/O shield opening, and PCIe slots are all just *slightly* misaligned. They will work fine, they are just a bit tight. This is the only place I’d say “you get what you pay for.”
+ The front 120mm fan cage features space for a 3.5″ bay adapter under it, but there is only part of a bracket for attaching one. The 3×5.25″ cage on the other side has a full bracket and works fine. I had to “install” some new screw holes with a Dremel below the fan cage to mount my 3.5″ accessory.
+ If you’re using rubber pegs instead of screws to install fans (as in Noctua designs), you are going to have a hell of a time getting your fingers into the various fan mounts to pull the tabs through their holes. It’s doable, but get some angled pliers if you don’t want a frustrating time.
I wouldn’t even consider knocking a star off for the above criticisms though. For what this case is meant to do, at this price, I couldn’t expect more (and I did expect a lot less).

Pros: – Solid construction
– Short depth (17.5″ will fit in 20″ racks)
– Easy enough to disassemble with a phillips head screwdriver
– Plenty of space to work with
– vibration dampening rubber grommets for cage mounts.
– 5x internal 3.5″ drive mounts 4 of which are in a drive cage behind the buttons in the front alternatively you can mount an additional 80mm intake fan here, but not both the fan and drives. the additional 3.5″ drive mount at the bottom of the 5.25 bay cage. If you order a second drive cage that makes 6 internal mounts and 8-10 hot swap bay mounts for a total of 14-16 depending on the hot swap cage you order. This means the case is pretty good for a short depth high-density NAS enclosure. Cons: – usb 2.0 front panel headers
– Cable management options/mounts are non-existant. You’ll probably want to pick up some zip-tie adhesive mounts.
– You know how you don’t read manuals unless you get stuck or are unsure about something? This doesn’t come with one. That made figuring out disassembly and odd mounting an interesting experience the first time around.
– Return shipping is half the price of the product, While it’s solidly packaged and you shouldn’t expect damage- be careful you don’t need to return one that you haven’t opened yet- it’s not worth the cost to do so.
– If you want any additional details about the chassis not already on the manufacturers website expect chenbro support to be entirely useless. Overall Review: So there are some additional things you should know about this chassis
– While not listed anywhere- the max supported CPU Cooler height is effectively 160mm. This means an NH-D15(165mm with fans) or Dark Rock Pro 3 or 4 (~163mm) will not fit. You should be ok with smaller high capacity air-coolers like NH-D14 (160mm), NH-U12A(159mm) Scythe Mugen 5, or any smaller CPU cooler.
– Also not listed anywhere here or on the manufacturer site is the height of the slim ODD slot. It’ll fit 12.5mm drives. If you use 9.5mm ultraslim drives you’ll have an unsightly gap. You’ll probably also want to pick up a slimline sata to sata adapter cable while you’re at it.
– You can swap the 5.25 drive cage position and/or order another one to put a second 3x 5.25 hot swap bay in. Doing so will require a Torx 20 driver to remove and rotate the mounting plate. You cannot however swap the 120mm fan cage to the right side, so don’t expect to order two of these to have one build with two 120mm fans and another with two hot swap bays.
– The 120mm front fan cage does have a filter, but it’s not particularly high quality.
– When mounting the slim ODD there is a metal bracket you affix to the shallow side of the drive with 2 screws and secure to the chassis with one screw (bag should be labelled)
– these screws are probably much smaller than what you’re used to when it comes to chassis screws, be sure to have a magnetized screwdriver.