I didn't see much in the way of review info on the
NORCO RPC-450 4U Rackmount Server Case
. On top of that, the pics almost always showed a microATX motherboard installed, which was nice for having lots of room left. However, I had an Extended ATX or EEB motherboard that I wanted to get into this thing so it was little bit of a gamble when I ordered it. I'm pretty happy with the results although there are caveats and some tight areas. Without further ado, the review:
Newegg shipped this thing double boxed and it arrived in fine condition. I don't live very far from the New Jersey distribution warehouse and I'm lucky enough to get stuff from them within a day or two.
 |
| From NorcoTek RPC-450 |
The RPC-450 comes with 2 big 120mm fans up front. Once you remove those you can slide out the drive cages. What's cool about this is that the drive cages are kind of like 5in3's. As you can see in this pic the space could support 3 5.25" drives vertically but with the cages installed there are slots for 5 3.5" drives. The 2 cages slide in and out using the same locking tabs you'd use for drives.
 |
| From NorcoTek RPC-450 |
On to the motherboard installation. The EEB size motherboard really does fill the space. Making matters worse, the fans and heatsinks for the dual xeons are located way up at the front of the motherboard. Here you can see how close one of the fans is to the frame:
 |
| From NorcoTek RPC-450 |
In this pic you can see my thumb :) and also how close the installed optical drive is. If the fans are any taller you aren't getting the optical drive in.
 |
| From NorcoTek RPC-450 |
You can see here that this fan problem also means you can't put more than 2 hard drives in the middle cage. Anything below that and the plugs would interfere with the fans:
 |
| From NorcoTek RPC-450 |
Just an overhead shot. The power supply fit easily and didn't get in the way. I didn't get my hands all hacked up either like is common when I'm working in some cases. Most of the edges really are rolled.
 |
| From NorcoTek RPC-450 |
So, in the end, it works. If you have a smaller motherboard you'll have almost no problems. I got a second case for my Unraid setup and that used a MicroATX motherboard. Lots of space and the cooling has been excellent. The same setup in a Coolermaster CM690 had the 1TB Hitachi drives hitting 40C+. In this case with the 120mm fans blowing right across them I'm usually in the high 20's on the Hitachi and only occasionally does it hit 30C. That's a lot of piece of mind for the life of my drives.
All pics are here http://picasaweb.google.com/mdgeek/NorcoTekRPC450# although the rest are fairly blurry.