SILVERSTONE Milo series ML05B Black Acrylic Front Panel, 0.8mm SECC body Mini-ITX Media Center / HTPC Case SILVERSTONE Milo series ML05B Black Acrylic Front Panel, 0.8mm SECC body Mini-ITX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Great look and feel. This case has excellent built quality, which is to be expected of Silverstone.

Cons: I ordered a Seasonic 350Watt SFX power supply from here on newegg. When i installed it i had to take the 2.5"HDD bracket out and am unable to fit it back in with the HDD installed. It could be an issue with the PSU but i am missing about a 1/4" of clearance to get it back in.

Other Thoughts: Overall i am very happy with this purchase.

Pros: PRICE. The build quality is awesome for only $40. I could not find any sharp edges and the pans and material feels very sturdy. The threads are nice and the included screws are all perfect.

Room for lots of 2.5INCH drives.

Cable management is not a big deal with this case if you are only using 1 or 2 drives and 2 fans.

The case looks fantastic.

Room for two 80mm side fans. This area could be used for an 80mm radiator mounted externally with the fans mounted internally. This could help keep cpu clearance low in order to use the 4 in 1 bracket.

Can fit low profile graphics cards.

Cons: CPU heatsink clearance is a major issue for anyone not using an embedded system. For example, I have an AMD A4 and I need it to be quiet so I installed the stock cooler from a Phenom II quad. This cooler has copper pipes and a larger heatsink. With this cooler installed, I cannot fit the 4 in 1 bracket into the case. This means NO 3.5inch drive, no dvd drive and no 2.5inch drive bay (you can still fit the 4 2.5inch drives in the drive bay.

The included 4 in 1 bracket is only good if you dont want a fan pointing down at the board. In order to make my 120mm top fan work, I had to remove the 4 in 1 adapter and screw the fan directly to the top panel. I then had to remove the AMD fan from my Phenom II cooler. This provides just enough clearance to use an AMD Phenom cooler with a 120mm top mounted fan. This works fine because the fan is so close to the cpu heatsink. It keeps the chip cool without making any noise. The stock AMD fans tend to be noisy and this is an HTPC case.

Other Thoughts: AMD A4 Trinity with Phenom II copper cooler (120mm top fan)
Asrock AM2+ ITX board (the A4 was left over from another build)
4GB DDR3 (1 stick)
Seasonic 300W SFX Power supply (SFX is the only supported psu)
750GB 2.5inch seagate drive

Because of the build quality for the price, I only took 1 egg off. My not being able to use the 4 in 1 bracket for my 3.5inch drive/fan/DVD drive is annoying. You need to run a very low CPU cooler in order to use this bracket. Also, \using the top bracket with a hard drive or dvd drive will significantly limit air flow into the case. I have a 120mm fan bolted to the top panel (this is not meant to be down) and i am avoiding the 4 in 1 bracket. This setup works well and the air flow is awesome.

Someone who wants to build a decent AMD A10 machine could do exactly what I did with my heatsink and install an SSD for boot and a few 2.5inch drives in raid. That would make an awesome HTPC machine.

Anyone looking to fit a full size graphics card needs to look elsewhere.


Please like this review if you found it helpful!

Pros: It's a very nice-looking case, with good provision for cooling and very flexible storage options. Finding a case this small that allows even a low profile video card is remarkable.

Cons: Where this case really falls down are the allowances for power supply and the optical drive. If you want an optical drive, absolutely do NOT buy this case. The tiny slot in the front doesn't allow you to expose the eject button. Even worse, the mounting tray is drilled such that there's a full 1/2" gap between the front of the drive and the interior of the case. That means you can't insert a disc without using some sort of tool to push it the rest of the way inside the case. Once the disc is in there, it's not coming back out at all unless you open the case, unscrew the drive tray, and lift it up. I've never seen such a poorly planned mounting system before.

If you're planning to use the drive cage, be prepared to put a great deal of stress on the power cables coming out of the power supply, or plan to use a PS that's smaller than the SFX size standard, such as a Pico PSU. I chose to toss out the drive cage and stick the SSD to the inside of the case. If you plan to have multiple hard drives, an optical drive, and a video card, you're going to have a very bad time with this case.

Other Thoughts: I would not buy this again and may yet return it. I'm building an HTPC and would like to be able to play and/or rip discs without too much hassle.

Pros: Was so excited when ordering did not realize that was a SFX slotted power supply, not a standard power supply (I made that mistake =P,). the ITX board fits very snug and tight into the case and is very well crafted.

Cons: - The only downside that I found to this case is the lack of outside easy accessible USB ports.
- Wish they would have included the 80mm fans with the case but for 40 bucks am not complaining or willing to degrade the rating. Would however recommend buying 2 to increase the airflow drastically in the case (I picked up 2 for 8 bucks on newegg by MASSCOOL FD08025S1M4 80mm Case Cooling Fan)

Other Thoughts: There are only 2 where as a majority of other manufacturers will give you at least 4 and does not have any fans to move any air in the case. Other than that, this case is great, Easy to access, and easy to take apart. Would give 4.5 eggs if could. The USB ports are only drawback for me. Even though the same 450W power supply is 20 bucks more than a standard one for being smaller, still a great case. only lost an egg for the lack of USB ports.

Pros: * Small, slick-looking case.
* Great build quality.
* Comes with lots of hardware.
* Satisfactory airflow, given the case size.

Cons: * Small size means this case is PACKED. Cable management is a bit tricky.
* Requires SFX power supply, ATX supplies will not work. I was only able to find one SFX power supply above 300 watts - it's sold by Silverstone, it's 450 watts and it's expensive. Given the case size, I would definitely have paid more for a modular version of this power supply, but they don't make one.
* Getting the disc drive working has been a nightmare - this is what took this case from 5 egg to 3 egg. See below.

Other Thoughts: There is only one slot-load slimline Bluray drive sold, and this is the Panasonic UJ265. It's rebranded by Silverstone and perhaps others, but they are all the same (expensive) Panasonic model. I know because I've ordered three from various places around the web and returned two. The Silverstone one seems to work the best, but I'm not sure if that's just my imagination.

Here's the problem - the drive is mounted to a removable bracket which in turn mounts to the top of the case. Slot-load drives require the disc to be pushed in to a certain depth, at which point the drive grabs the disc and pulls it the rest of the way in. Drives mounted in the ML05B are just far enough back from the slot in the case that even when a disc is pushed all the way in, it is not far enough into the drive to activate the drive's grabbing mechanism!

With the first and second drives I ordered (not sold by Silverstone), I could only get discs into the drive by pushing them further into the case slot with another disc. With the Silverstone drive, the grabbing mechanism will activate after you push the disc as far as it will go into the slot, and then push it even further with the tip of your finger.

This is good enough for me, since I've already poured a lot of time into this HTPC build and discs aren't going to be the main thing I use it for, but it's pretty weak on Silverstone's part. Why would they make such an otherwise great case, with a prominent disc slot on the front, and then force you to mount the drive too far back to properly grab discs? I'm thinking about busting out the dremel, but as this is mostly a media streamer box, I'll probably just deal with the issue for now. I even called SIlverstone and spoke with a tech about the issue; he said he had put together a demo unit with the ML05B and the SOB02 (Silverstone's part number fo rthe UJ265) and had no problems. Am I missing something?

Anyway, the case is great if you don't want to put an optical drive in it. Maybe there are slimline slot-load DVD drives out there that have a higher "grab depth", I don't know - this figure wasn't listed on any of the data sheets I found, so the only way to find out is to buy stuff and return it. Probably not worth it for this case.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you very much for purchasing a SilverStone and for sharing your experience. We do make a modular SFX power supply, it is called ST45SF-G, which you can find in the below link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256084

As for the slim optical drives that we sell, they are all brand new factory units, not refurbished or "pulled" drives that are sometimes sold on the internet for noticeably lower prices without warranty.

Pros: If you are searching for a tiny, mini-itx / small form factor case that provide support for all of your home theatre needs as well as provide a low-profile expansion slot for your tv-tuner or video card, then this is the case to buy.

For me, I have always wanted a mini-itx case that allowed a single-slot, low-profile video card so that I can having a gaming htpc case for my bedroom. However, I had already purchased a silverstone ft03-mini and went ahead and got a full size card.

Therefore, I purchased this case more on an impulse buy and I was not disappointed. I decided to use it for a build for my brother for multi-media use for his chess class. I needed to have a semi-powerful CPU for the chess software but also needed to keep the energy and noise level down.

I chose these components:

Silverstone Ml05b
Gigabyte h77-itx wifi mini-itx motherboard
Intel core-i5 3350p
Silverstone NT06-E
G-skill Ares 2x4gb 1600mhz ddr3
Sapphire low-profile 7750
Silverstone 450w 80+ bronze sfx power supply
750gb 2.5" Western Digital Black 7200rpm hdd
Silverstone Air Penetrator 120mm fan
2x 80mm Arctic fans
SIlverstone 80mm and 120mm fan filters
*No optical drive*

Unfortunately, the NT06-E was too high, even with the air penetrator mounted on the bottom of the heatsink, so I had to use the stock cooler for now. In the future, I might try the cooler master geminii m4, but for now the stock is fine.

All the components fit like a glove. One positive about such a small case is that every component is so packed in that it looks like it is a perfect fit and that everything is where it needs to be.

All in all though, everything fit and is functioning properly. For the most part, the case is quiet. Not whisper quiet, but enough (see cons). My fingerprints did not leave too many smudges, and it comes with included feet so prevent scratches on surfaces or itself.

But I digress. The pros:

- Tiny! (7 liters, a few inches less than the depth of a pillow).

- Black matte finish, except for the glossy plastic front. Still looks good, gives off a mirror sheen.

- Cheap! $45 for a case like this? Really impressive.

- Thermals. Plenty of airflow for the major components.

- Portability. Will be able to take this anywhere you want to go.

Cons: If you are looking to purchase a mini-itx or small-form-factor case (sfx), then you already know that it will aleady come with some issues, such as cable management, airflow, and finding correctly-sized components. So I can't dock anything for that.

These are a list of minor issues, but they are not anything worth subtracting an egg for. Just comes with buying a sub-$50 case.

- The decision to use a slim, slot-loading optical drive is the current trend for Silverstone's sfx cases. Silverstone themselves sell both a slot-load DVD and a slot-load Blu-Ray drive, so they are probably doing it for marketing reasons. Unfortunately, it's hard to find these drives for any reasonable price:

Silverstone's slim, slot-load dvd drive: $70
Silverstone's slim, slot-load Blu-ray drive: $170

- Top panel requires a lot of force to remove it, almost to the point of being afraid if I will bend or warp it. Don't be scared - just pull it off!

- A little more difficult to install motherboard I/O shield; little metal clips were in the way and had to snap it on with more force and a little maneuvering, but it worked out alright.

- A lot of venting can be too much venting. The case's noise was my main concern when buying. I have set the fans on low and have filters, and with the two 80mm fans and the 120mm fan installed, the sound would be imperceptible from just a few feet away if it wasn't for the sfx power supply. Silverstone knows that their line of SFX power supplies are almost exclusively the only ones that are of quality and match the case. Unfortunately, their models include an 80mm fan that doesn't have any thermal sensor to throttle it when it's not needed. Therefore, the 80mm fan is on a high setting all the time, which produces unnecessary noise. Otherwise, it is actually pretty good (I set all the fans with filters and on intake to get positive pressure).

- Video card airflow? (see other thoughts).

Other Thoughts: I have been searching for a tiny, gaming htpc case like this for literally years. You can search through mini-itx cases over and over but you won't find anything similar.

You can find the Inwin BP-series, which offer extremely compact dimensions but are extremely limited on power supplies and airflow, especially for the graphics card. (Pixxo's mini-itx cases are very similar but do provide the venting on the side for the video card, in case anyone is interested. Buy that one rather than the Inwin).

You can search for mini-itx cases that provide single-slot graphics solutions, but they are either full-height (Lian Li) or have no venting on the side to provide enough air flow to prevent overheating. The only exception is the Antec ISK 300 series, but the power supply is so shabby that you have to mod it to get it to be enough.

You can search for mini-itx cases that accomodate TFX or larger power supplies, but they generally come with full height graphics solutions and are much too large (Cube or square shaped, targeted towards having high-end components rather than low power, quiet parts. Can you say Lian Li, Silverstone Sugo, Thermaltake SD101, etc?)

I believe that this case fufills the gaming htpc niche for cases that are horizontal and give the standard theatre look. I would highly recommend this case - fantastic features, great price, and looks nice!

Pros: Great htpc case , small enough for my Tv cabinet , well ventilated , Enough space .
I had a old MI-008 case with a 250w psu . Fit right in , removed the HDD cage (for cable management ) as I am only using 1 ssd. also space on top for a 120 mm fan

Cons: None so far ...