Rosewill RSV-L4000 Black Metal / Steel, 1.0 mm thickness, 4U Rackmount Server Chassis 8 Internal Bays, 7 Included Cooling Fans

Pros: I like this case. It's surprisingly quiet with all the fans in it, but I suppose that's to be expected with 120 mm "dumb" fans. They move plenty of air and there is some noise, but it's more from the volume of air moving in/out of the case rather than the fans themselves making noise.

Also, the cover of the case is pretty easy to get off, but it's held on by regular screws. For the price, I suppose I can't really expect a screwless design.

Cons: The drive cages are cheap, the plastic brackets and pegs that fit on the drives to insert them into the cage don't line up properly with standard holes, it's a very tight fit and the rubber vibration insulators get pushed out and make it difficult to get the drive into the cage.

Other Thoughts: It would be great if the three 120 mm fans in the middle of the case were on a removable bar. There's a removable aluminum bar that I suppose is there to give the case some stability, it would be nice if both of them were removable so you could get to the connections on hard drives easier. The way it is, I have to slide the drive cage part-way out the front of the case so I have enough room to get my hand in there to plug in SATA and power connections.

Pros: This case, when used with the RSV drive cage, can hold 12 hard drives with excellent airflow/cooling. Some of the other reviews have suggest that removing the power/reset/front-USB module is required to place the third drive cage---this is incorrect. The third drive cage simply gets installed rotated 90 degrees and the case has all the detents set up for that to work smoothly. The updated L4500 places the module on the side so all three cages line up. There's plenty of internal room for a full size motherboard and power supply and lots of fans, and the entire front panel operates as an air filter to help keep the contents clean. If you want to, instead of a third drive cage, you can have 5½ inch peripherals placed horizontally such as optical drives.

Cons: The tool-less drive cages take some fiddling to work but are serviceable. Early versions had front handles that go beyond the 4U standard envelope -later versions fixed this. The RSV drive cage sometime goes out of stock, and several other drive cages I tried from other manufacturers didn't fit well - Rosewill once rounded up some cages for me when I couldn't order them [THANK YOU!].

Other Thoughts: The updated L4500 holds 15 drives, has better drive cages that are easier to load with drives, and fits the three cages in the same orientation, and comes with all three cages included. If you have no need for 5½ inch peripherals, the L4500 works out better than this L4000. I actually mixed the drive cages of the L4500 with two of these L4000 and two RSV cages to get three boxes that held 13 drives each - I had the L4000's in hand when the L4500 became available.

The R4000 is more compact because it lacks the middle fans, but it's otherwise similar and uses the same drive cages as this box.

There's other boxes that can hold twice as many drives in 4U, but I've had failures of the mezzanine boards that connect the drives and trouble getting stable controllers for 24 drives under Linux. I can get stable RAID systems with 12-15 drives using motherboard SATA ports and simple SATA add-on cards.

Pros: Nice large case, sturdy. Plenty of room to work inside. great price for a server case. Comes with plenty of fans, two in the rear, two in the front, three that reside inside the case behind the drive bays. Runs rather quiet.

Cons: What I don't like is the hard drive carriages. They are cheap plastic and provide 4 cheap white pin plugs that hold in the drive. I had to use traditional screws. I had a difficult time lining up the pins to the drive. Then they would pop out and the white grommet would just deteriorate.
The Instructions are basic, small print and rather useless. But the case is simple enough, you can figure things out.
The front door on the case.....would be nice if you didn't have to lock it all the time. If its not locked, it just slams open..be careful!

Other Thoughts: I think if Rosewell can re-think the cons, you would have a great server case. They may be more annoying to me only, but in general, I can purchase ATX case for the same cost that have better functionality.

Pros: Great case with many fans. Quiet operation and room for plenty of drives. Price was nice too.

Cons: no cons

Pros: Very solid construction and painting.

Very quiet.

Cons: Harddrive rails are of terrible construction and are nearly impossible to fit onto drives.

No cable management.

Other Thoughts: Has an optional extra harddrive cage which can replace the 5-inch bays, but at the cost of the power button and front-panel lights and USB.

Pros: Solid construction, excellent paint job. Good cooling design.

Cons: I suspect I got a used case since lock with keys and side rails are missing from the box. Both are needed for me to install it in the rack and to lock it.

Other Thoughts: I am not sure what is happening but this is 2nd RMA in the past two months due to poor packaging or packing...

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you very much for purchasing this unit. We strive to provide the most reliable and highest quality products to our customers. Please kindly contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at rma@rosewill.com so we may assist you with a replacement.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: - Roomy enough for whatever you're going to put it in it.
- Solid Construction
- Did I mention solid? This thing's a tank!
- Pre-loaded with all the fans you'll need
- Got a free HDD cage with purchase

Cons: - Cable management is going to take some extra patience, zip ties, and creativity.

- Everyone has mentioned the hard drive cages- they aren't the best, though after 4-5 drives I kinda got the hang of inserting the drives. If you're using physically large drives, like a 3 TB+, you're going to struggle a bit. My advice-patience.

- There is not a lot of room to operate between the rear ends of the HDD cages and the bar holding the 120mm fans. It's best to get your drives in the cage, plug in your cables, and THEN insert the cages in to the chassis. Trust me, this will make your life easier.

- As noted, the fans aren't silent, but this shouldn't be going in your living room.

Other Thoughts: - If possible, get yourself a modular power supply to help with cable management and getting the HDD cages in place.

- Mine actually IS in my living room (long story), so I'll be grabbing a molex-compatible fan controller to quite it down a bit- it's cheaper to buy a controller and mount it inside the chassis than to purchase 8 "silent" fans. (and less of a pain- the thought of opening this baby up to pull and replace fans makes me cringe- although wouldn't have been so bad if I installed them at the outset.

- I am running this as a FreeNAS server with 3 RAIDZ pools for Media Storage and Data Backups. Love it.

CPU: Intel Celeron G1610
MB: MSI B75A-G43
RAM: GeIL EVO Veloce Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR31600
PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M2 RS620-SPM2E3-US 620W
HDD: 5 3TB, 2 2TB, 2 1.5TB, 2 1TB, 1 750GB
RAID CARDS: 3 Rosewill RC-209-EX

Pros: This case is very good for such a price for my uses (home server).

I was able to remove the entire front bays, reposition the power/usb bracket vertically, and install 3x hotswap cages to accommodate 12 hard drives, saving hundreds of dollars without any permanent modification to the chassis.

The case is very solid with no flex, plenty of cooling options, and you can fit nearly any server motherboard.

Cons: The plastic removable hard drive trays are junk, just take the entire assembly out and replace them with a better one such as a proper hotswap cage.

The case is a bit large depth-wise so do some measurements before buying.

Pros: Great looking case with solid construction and functional design. Lots of space for hard disk drives and excellent cooling layout.

8x 3.5" internal hard drive bays, plus there is an attachment to add 4x additional 3.5" bays. Also, the drive bays are tool-less ;-)

Cons: It looks like the case was discontinued right after I purchased it. I hope Newegg brings this case back. Perhaps they are going to tweak the design and re-release it as a new model.

I have not installed all the components yet, but the only con I can see right off the bat are the power and reset buttons.

Other Thoughts: Also there are no USB 3.0 ports.

Pros: Amazing case, very solid, lots of quiet fans. very long with plenty of room. Has feet on the bottom (nice for when you are putting everything together) Much more solid than other cases at the same price point.

Cons: The fans only have the old 12v connectors. It would be nice if they just had MB connectors

Other Thoughts: I would buy this again