Small Case Build

Since around October last year I’ve been running v4 without hiccup, serving lots of video & music media around the house, and storing documents/files etc. The usual home NAS use-case I guess.

It’s a fairly simple affair as I don’t need billions of Terabaytes of storage, I have a pair of 3.5" 4TB spinners in raid1, a single 2.5" 2TB spinner which is currently just a regular rsync copy of the raid1 data, and a 120GB SSD as system disc. A mini ITX mobo and a regular ATX PSU do the rest, with a 120mm fan blowing air around. Fortunately the CPU is passively cooled, and the PSU and case fans are pretty much inaudible.

The only downer for me was the fact all this was housed in a full size tower case sitting in the corner of our lounge: I could have fitted 2 servers in there :slight_smile:

Scouring the interweb I kept coming across a few suitable small cases - and plumped for the Kolink Satellite in the end, which turned up a couple days ago.

I’m impressed with the build quality for the price, and a whisper quiet 120mm fan comes preinstalled at the rear.

So, no more words, how about some pictures instead…

The front view, across the top l-r Power LED, HDD LED, USB3, Mic, Audio Out, USB3, Reset, Power:

Rear:

Right Side (note ATX PSU towards front of case at side, with extension mains to the rear). The vertical bracket holds two 2.5" drives:

Left Side with 3.5" drives mounted horizontally at top, cable spaghetti every where else:

Top View showing 3.5" drives, fan to rear which cools them nicely:

The whole thing is much smaller than the tower case, and will slot somewhere unobtrusive. It suits my need perfectly.

:slight_smile:

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Thanks for this post Geoff, am currently researching the nas subject with a view to utilising a 2008 mini atx running a celeron core 2 duo, the medium tower case is also large and I will be looking at the Kolink Satellite as it appeara to be just the ticket.
First I have to check out the curent hardware for relaibiliy.
Thanks again Mike

@Mike-B I have found the case to be a perfect unobtrusive size for my needs. You mention mini-ATX motherboard: I’m not sure of the standard dimensions of that board, so do double check the Kolink capabilities as space is at a premium inside the case and anything much larger than mini-ITX might prove a tight fit, if at all possible.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the GOLDEN FIELD N-2S is basically the same case with a different Aluminium outer for a similar price from Amazon.

1 Like

Thanks once again
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