I did for my new Unraid build (5x18TB and 4x10TB HDDs, with a i5-4590, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and AliExpress mini-ITX board that were hanging around in my spare parts running the show) that’s to house backups for my other Unraid box (media server) and it’s pretty damn sturdy, not to mention the door/gate handle I got from Amazon for it fits the case pretty well:
After measuring everything, I drilled a couple of holes in the central “spine” at the top of the chassis, installed a couple of #8-32 rivnuts (first time I needed to use that rivnut tool I bought a couple of years ago…), and trimmed some of the plastic louvers out from the underside of the top panel. Then, I drilled a couple of holes in the top panel mesh for the handle screws to pass through, and tweaked around with a couple of stacks of flat washers shimming between the top of the rivnuts and the bottom of the top panel mesh to make sure I didn’t bow in the top panel when screwing the handle on.
4 Likes
I don’t personally have one, but it is definitely a LAN party mobile case and one I’ve looked at in the last few years as a compact second system. The winner for that ended up being the Silverstone RVZ01-E just to re-purpose old hardware. An AMD 3700x and 5700xt. Thermals are great even living in a tropical climate.
1 Like
In addition to being able to use a standard ATX power supply, one of the main reasons I got the 804 was, looking at Fractal’s schematics for the case, to have the ability to add a carrying handle, because this machine is supposed to be home to cold backups of my media server, which mean that, ideally, it needs to be stored offsite. With 9 HDDs in this, it’s a heavy one, probably about 25-30 pounds with everything installed; the handle feels pretty solid, but, with all this weight hanging off two rivnuts mounted at points on the case that were never intended to bear that much weight, I’m still cagey about the handle as a long-term solution for moving this thing around. Still though, it looks good and does function pretty well right now, at least until I can find a cheap (likely used) road case big enough to fit this.
2 Likes
A thicker at base handle with four rivets would probably be better for your needs. You could easily reinforce it with a 1/16" piece of metal on either end of the handle to compensate for the already drilled holes.
1 Like
I will say, with the two vertical hard drive mounts completely loaded up and running with eight drives, the three included Fractal fans just don’t move enough air on that side of the case, even with the built-in fan controller on high (as shipped, the HDD side has one 120mm exhaust fan, while the motherboard side of the case has two 120mm fans, one intake and one exhaust); after a while of backing up my media server to this machine and the fan controller on medium, Unraid started throwing HDD caution temp messages at me on almost every one of those eight drives, which were hitting and hovering at about 45-46 deg C (still within the drives’ design limits, but…). Later, I moved the HDD bay exhaust fan to the front of the case to be an intake and installed a 140mm Noctua redux 1500rpm fan for exhausting the HDD bay side; that gave me two 120mm fans in the front for intakes and two fans in the back for exhaust (the 120mm Fractal on the mobo side, the 140mm Noctua on the HDD side).
So far, with the added Noctua 140mm and the fan controller on high, HDD temps with everything running continuously for the past couple of days has been maxing out at about 38 deg C or so.
38C is beyond fine for HDDs today. I have two in the bottom/power supply chamber of a Phanteks P500 and the brand of fan hasn’t made a difference. They’ve stayed at less than 40C each for over 4 years even under load. If you were hitting 42C you’d still be fine. The CPU temp is more important in such a compact enclosure.
I’m using Be Quiet Silent Wings 4 Pro 140’s intake and 1 exhaust, 3 Be Quiet Silent Wings 4 Pro 120’s top exhaust mounted to my Arctic Freezer 2 360 AIO. Unless they go above 50C, you’re probably fine.
1 Like
I’d thought about reinforcing around the rivnut holes, but realized that those are likely going to be the strongest connections; if anything fails, it’s likely to be the rivets connecting that upper spine/top plate to the front and rear of the chassis.
Fractal have pretty solid build structure. I wouldn’t worry about that. Reinforcement on the handle would be extremely important if you lugged it around a lot, like a LAN party build.
1 Like
Oh yeah, I’m fine with the HDD temps now, with the 120mm Fractal pulling intake air and 140mm Noctua pushing exhaust on the HDD side, I just was not happy with the temps with just that low-RPM 120mm exhaust.
Fractal fans aren’t super great. Not terrible, but far from the best. Unless it is 180mm, which is so obscure only Silverstone competes.
Keep in mind, the Node 804 was also designed years ago, long before the high heatload components we see today as normal.
1 Like
Still, for a more-than-a-decade-old design, the 804 is a solid smallish-form-factor case and a little forward-thinking with the semi-dual-chamber design.
1 Like
Oh, absolutely. I would love to see the all of the big boy brands make new SFF cases (Silverstone included). Hell, the RVZ01-E was absolute shit to build in, but no one else had a “console” style case. I did look at Sliger, but they seem to have abandoned any mention on their website about the “Conswole” in recent years.
1 Like
This is exactly what I did before I went full on NetApp disk shelf. I loved this case for the ability to put 10 x 3.5in HDDs in it without having to buy extra brackets. Definitely worth it for a NAS.
I also had the heat issue. I realized it a bit late, but added fans to make sure I had decent airflow on both sides of the case.
1 Like
