LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-Q18B Mini ITX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: The case seems like a pretty good case. Did my research, liked the color, thought it would be nice. Purchased it when it went on sale.

Cons: This is one of my first bad Newegg experiences. I ordered the black one, got the silver one. No way was I going to be able to make the silver version of this case work with my mostly black media center system. Call them up to get them to switch it to the right one and they have me send the silver case back in. Afterwards, I get a notice I was getting a refund because the item was out of stock. A week after I send it back, the site shows the item back in stock. Makes for an unhappy customer. It looks like they just didn't want to offer it at the sale price. Now if I want to buy it, it will cost me 50 dollars more.

Other Thoughts: I wish they would have just said they were out of stock and not get me baited and switched out for the silver one. The time I wasted getting it RMA-ed was quite frustrating.

Pros: First time investing in a Lian-Li case, and probably not my last. I generally purchase cheaper plastic cases, but wanted something that did a better job of dampening HDD vibration for a home NAS. Lian-Li really took everything into consideration with this case -- rubber grommets for drive mounts, completely tool-less, light aluminum chassis (without sharp finger-slicing edges!), etc. When pushing against the case with both fingers, there's virtually no vibration (a minor, minor amount, but it might even be from fans or other components...).

Cons: The only thing that I was a little bummed about was the USB 3.0 front handle headers. They're not actual motherboard headers, but rather male connectors that are designed to be run to the back of the case and plugged into the motherboard's back panel. I already knew about this from external reviews, however, so it's not really a gripe, just a wish!

Pros: There's no denying the quality of the materials used in this case. From the tool-less/screw-less side panels, the HDD trays, to the chassis feet Lian Li did not cheap out on this.

There are multiple mounting options for storage including hot-swap rails and a removable floor-mounted drive tray. Plenty of rubber bushings and screws are included to mount several 2.5" and 3.5" drives.

You could choose to forego the floor tray and mount a 140mm fan (not included) as well.

Cons: My biggest gripe is with mounting a standard ATX power supply. In my case the mounting hole on the back of the case can barely receive the PSU. Even though you have to mount a plate to the PSU which covers the opening completely, the opening is so tight that the PSU has to be forced in. I had to return a PSU I ordered that had a small LED because the LED wouldn't clear and in fact I had to scrape the stickers off of the replacement PSU to get it to fit. If you're handy you could use a dremel or a file to give yourself some room, but I feel this shouldn't be necessary on such a premium case.

PSU issue aside, this case is tight. If you're building a mini-ITX you probably have an idea what you're getting into but considering the overall size of the case I thought there would be more room inside to work with. The drive racks below the ODD are permanently mounted although it would be very useful to be able to remove at least the bottom 2. I ended up stuffing wiring inside one of the empty rack bays.

Price (I paid $140). You could piece together an entire ITX build for around the price of this case.

Other Thoughts: I'm using this in a HTPC/Steam setup. Noise is not an issue and I'm still tweaking some things but so far, so good.

AMD A10-5800K Trinity APU
AsRock FM2 MiniITX mobo
2x 4GB DDR3 1600
Corsair Builder 450W ATX PSU
1x Blu-Ray ROM
1x 120GB SSD
1x 3TB Green HDD
1x PCIe InfiniTV4 tuner card
Windows 8 pro w/ Media Center

Pros: Nice case with a user friendly design. Installing drives is easy and tool less. Removing the side panels involves just pulling them out. I can't comment on the fans since I replaced the stock fans with 2 Noctua's. I've got 5 drives installed in mine and had zero issues getting them in. Overall I'm happy with my purchase.

Cons: If you have a standard ATX power supply it goes without saying that those cables make for a tight fit. Also getting the IO shield in was a royal pain.

Other Thoughts: I didn't buy an optical drive because for my needs I didn't need it. I used the space to stuff power supply cables into.

Pros: Nice compact design. It's small but can handle a lot of drives. My setup has four hard drives, DVD-ROM and an SSD. The air flow is good and the fans are very quiet.

Cons: You are limited to using 5.5 inch power supplies. I couldn't find a modular power supply that fits so I had to use a non-modular model. Needless to say, I had unused cables that needed to be tucked away in little space remaining.

The cables to the front panel USB 3.0 ports have external connectors instead of the proper header for motherboards. The adapter cost me an extra $10.

The lack of a reset button and the bright power/drive LED are minor annoyances.

Other Thoughts: Despite a few cons, this is an excellent case for a home server or multimedia machine.

Pros: Small, High Quality, Black, Drive Bays work well, Places for drives everywhere there are 4 bays, 3 drives can fit on bottom, and under the drive cage you can fit another drive. Also fits a fullsize video card no problem. End result after hours of cablemanagement is a small sleak fully capable machiene. Weights a ton with everything in there.

Cons: PSU did not fit. I bought a extender kit from lian li. Also note that USB 3.0 comes terminated with stanard connectors not MOBO connectors. you need an adapter and the adapter i bought did not fit with the PSU above the mobo. I bought a slim cooler but the Stock one would have fit fine as well. CABLE MANGEMENT IS A NIGHTMARE IN THIS CASE.

Other Thoughts: Be ready to spend time on cable management. However im really pleased with size and system. I have 4 2TB drives for 8TB total plus a SSD and blueray drive. Fits everything for a sweet media center/server.

Pros: High quality case that was the size I needed for a new multi-purpose HTPC. The look of the case is very professional. The materials are high quality. The sides come off very nicely. I love having two 140mm fans in this size of case. They provide great airflow and are whisper quiet.

Cons: The USB 3 cables from the front of the case are not a USB 3 motherboard header plug, but two very long USB 3 cables which are designed to go out of the back of the case, loop around, and plug into USB 3 plugs on the back of your motherboard. This may have been acceptable for cases when USB 3 first launched (and motherboards may not have had the USB 3 header), but that is no longer the case. It looks like I may be able to separately purchase a proper replacement cable from Lian Li. For a new case in 2012 this was a bad decision.

Removing the HD bay seems like it will be semi-common for this case as there are three HD mounts on the bottom of the case. Be aware that removing this bay requires drilling out 4 pop-rivets which connect the optical bay to the HD bay. I had a drill so this was not too big of a con for me. If you don't care about keeping the optical bay than the entire thing just comes right out.

Other Thoughts: Even with the HD bay removed you still have to stay within the size spec on the PSU due to a very slight overlap of the optical drive bay. 160mm fits fine with the HD bay removed, but you need to keep the HD bay I would highly suggest a 140-150mm PSU. 160mm would give your cables almost no room to bend.

While stated on their site, if you use 3.5inch HDs on the bottom of the case you will not be able to fit a double wide video card. You will need to put the 3.5inch HDs in the HD bay in that scenario.

-- Lian Li PC-Q18B, i7-3770k, Asrock Z77E-ITX, Intel 520 180GB SSD, 16GB Patriot G2 series DDR3 1600, SeaSonic X750 Gold PSU, 2TB WD Black HD, LG 14x BlueRay burner, 4xtuners