Pros: - Liked the Hard drive Caddies. Appeared to be better than the supermicro varients. - Allows for standard PSU - Using Seasonic 850w gold certified. - 24 bay capacity - Cheaper than SuperMicro in the end (for us we saved $150 over the 24 bay supermicro chassis) - Roomy with a SuperMicro 9-F-O board. Did not mind working inside the chassis. - Would buy again as long as I order the replacement fans and fan wall in one go (see other thoughts below) - The 1 hour labor is worth it to have exactly what you want.

Cons: -800mm deep rack (which some folks consider deep) - Any small rack mount most likely not be able to hold the chassis on its length. It fits snugly into a 800mm deep rack. - Running with stock fans is unacceptable LOUD. I repeat YOU WILL HEAR THESE FANS IN YOUR SLEEP - from the GARAGE! See other thoughts for recommended no fuss fix. - No Manual. The second row of molex connectors are for a redundant PSU if you have one - I used a 1 in 7 molex splitter (see other thoughts) to plug these in as it appears to be recommended.

Overall Review: iPCDIRECT.NET is the online store front of Norco Technologies. This is the OEM place for the items newegg currently does not stock such as brackets. Buy this chassis with the following items: 1. Case Middle Fan wall for 120mm fans - Norco online store sells these for about $20 shipped 2. Case Middle Fans: Noctua NF-P12-1300 120mm Fan x 3 3. Case Rear Fans: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Fan x 2 4. NORCO C-P1T7 4 Pin Molex 1 Male to 7 Female Power Extension Splitter Cable - use this to plug in the secondary backplane 5. Ball Bearing RL-26 rails - NewEgg carries the RL-26 rails but they are friction rails - you DO want the RL-26 BALL-BEARING RAILS - Norco online store carries these. The above setup makes my server nearly silent and airflow is very optimal - my hard drives running on load 30C-40C. - Remove the HDD caddies when working and racking the server. It allows 1 person to load and unload the rack. - We used this for a VMware ESXi whitebox build.

Pros: 24 hot-plug bays on the front make building your NAS a breeze. This is perhaps the best density/dollar value on the market for a proper, hot-plug, backplane equipped storage-centric server you will find. Being able to fit all this as well as a full ATX board (or any of its more Lilliputian brethren) into the case and still have room to work is wonderful. Airflow design is ideal for the purpose, and draws fully front to rear, with no obstacles. The addition of several status LEDs, 2 USB ports and power+reset buttons on the rack "ears" is an interesting placement, but not unheard of. The drive cages are not only fitted with 3.5" mounting holes, but also 2.5" mounting holes. No adapter is required to mount 2.5" drives in the bays.

Cons: There are only 2 real cons with this unit. 1. The separator/fan wall used. Instead of using the (ample) vertical space to house 120mm fans, Norco defaults to 4 80mm fans. Those are not the quietest in the world. Spend the extra money, and purchase Norco's 3x 120mm replacement divider. Your ears will thank you when you can hold a conversation directly over or in front of this monster while the cover is actually off the unit (yes, with 3 quality 120mm fans, even at full speed, you can have a conversation and the other party will not know you are calling them inches away from a running server). 2. This is a bit if a con for the, "a little at a time," builder. not everyone will fall into this category, but if you do, be aware: In my circumstance, I only populated 8 of the 24 bays (I placed the empty cages back in the front). This is not a terrible issue for the electronics behind the drives; the 16 cages that have no drives pass massive amounts of air into the chassis for the items behind the drives. This "path of least resistance" for the air does mean that airflow over the 8, populated, drives is reduced. My solution was to use travel-case foam cut to the hight and width of a hard drive, then to friction-fit into the empty cages, and re-insert. I believe Norco's intent with this case was for it to be fully populated, making this less of an issue, but is is still something to consider if you are running fewer than 24 drives and want to ensure adequate airflow over the populated bays.

Overall Review: 1. SFF-8087 - Don't forget - this thing has 6 backplanes. You cannot just plug standard SATA cables in and rock on. Not everyone sees this before buying, and this could cause a panic if it were to arrive without knowing. SFF-8087 (and recently SFF-8643) is commonplace in servers and higher-density systems, but the first time buyer venturing into home-built NAS may not know about it when they open the lid of this guy. Be sure to get SFF-8087 cables appropriate to your needs to attach to the backplanes. Also, new, 12Gb SAS cards are on the market (like the Areca 1883 series) that sport SFF-8643 connectors. These cards often have a number of SKUs that may include none, SFF-8643 to SFF-8087, SFF-8643 to SFF-8643 or SFF-8643 to SATA cables in their kits. Reasearch your card of choice to be sure it comes with the cables you need, or purchase separately. 2. The unique placement of the power and rest buttons on the rackmount ears can make for a bad day if you are not careful - Be sure to set the system to require a 4-second press to actually power off. I would avoid connecting the reset button entirely. That being said, they DO require a hefty amount of force to press, but be safe when walking by the rack. 3. The case can be very quiet - Track down the 120mm fan equipped divider wall and throw away the 80mm fan wall. Even with a Xeon 1230, an Areca 1883ix, an 850 watt PSU and a wall of 120 MM fans, the server is quiet. VERY quiet. 4. It's heavy. Either install this in your rack without the drives populated, or call a friend over to help. Your back and knees will thank you.

Pros: Much cheaper than all of the SM cases I have 80TB of Raid6 with 2x hot spares in 4U! Easy to work on and replace drives.

Cons: Not a fan of the reset/power buttons unprotected on the front of the handle. With 3x 120mm Noctua fans at backplane, the 2x Noctua 80mm fans cannot exhaust what the 120s are pushing

Overall Review: Connect backplane cables (power and data) with fan backplane loosened (you'll save your knuckles and time) Drive bay numerical sequence is backwards of what I expected...looking at front: 3 2 1 0 7 6 5 4 11 10...etc

Pros: - Price -Features at this price point -Easy compatibility with normal ATX parts -No unnecessary frills -Simple layout and included cooling more than you need for low power storage configurations -front panel USB for diagnostics -Perfect for a large FreeNAS array if you're a data hoarder like myself

Cons: -A few sharp edges on the fan grills and on the power supply mount -The power supply mount on the new version fits extremely tightly to the bottom of the case. I had to loosen the back ATX power supply mount (you'll need a tube screwdriver for 3 of the PSU mount screws that are hard to get to) and remove the sticker from the side of the PSU in order to mount it to the case. Maybe keep a dremel on hand in order to widen the screw holes for your PSU just in case. -new case design no longer features redundant molex for the use of a redundant power supply.

Overall Review: This case now comes with a 3 120mm fan middle wall (the fan hotswap bays are colored hunter orange!) instead of the old four and a 12Gb/s backplane (still SFF8087). I have one of the old and new model. The new model is considerably quieter but the drive trays are noticeably flimsier, however they work just as well as the ones on the old case. Many people will complain about blown backplanes and blown drives due to this case but most of these issues are traced back to bad Molex connectors/connections. Get a good power supply and note that the Molex power to each of the six backplanes is upside-down from the normal molex configuration.

Pros: It's Cheap! That's it..

Cons: One of the backplane's does not work and Norco never responds to support. I've emailed them twice, and NO matter what time you call them, they send you to voicemail. Due to their lack of response and service, I will NEVER buy NORCO products again. Worst Support EVER!!!!

Overall Review: Buy another brand. You might actually get tech support.

Pros: Nice built case from the metal work perspective, Good delivery from NewEgg to Canada, If it was not for the backplane cards, this would be a five.

Cons: very bad from the electronics perspective. I am on my second case (Replacement for the first that had 3 faulty backplane cards and NewEgg could not simply exchange the cards, whole case had to go back). Second case also had 3 faulty cards, fortunatly I cross shipped so was able to build one good case from the 2 bad ones, I will be shipping the remaining parts back in the next few days.

Overall Review: ALL the cards bar one had the exact same fault, Bay 3 would not work (5 cards with QA stickers, all with the same fault) As I have an electronics background, I examined the cards and found R91 of all the cards where either missing or miss placed. These cards could never have worked so why is there a QA sticker on them ??. Oh the last faulty card had a broken handle used to remove it from the back plane and a broken resistor :( It is a real shame that such a nice case is plagued by such a simple fault, NewEgg where helpfull in providing a replacement case (Had to pay for it subject to cross shippping) but Norco really needs to get its act together, I notice from other feedback, this has been happening for a long time now.

Pros: Inexpensive large drive capacity Fairly decent airflow Roomy for motherboard and PSU bay

Cons: Top cover is not easily removable in a datacenter environment. I would've like to see either a handle, or at least larger screws than the flimsy tiny ones they use. Makes removing the cover a pain, especially if you lose these screws. Powering of the backplanes is EXTREMELY finicky. Make SURE to avoid Y power splitters at all costs, use a high wattage and amperage PSU with a single 12V rail. Power/Reset button placement is not in a good place. Consider unplugging them if you expect to need to pull it out of the rack by the handles while it is running. Weight is definitely not the best, but what can you expect from such a large beast. Remove all the drive caddy's before attempting to mount this on rails, definitely do not attempt to mount on rails if the drives are in place, even with two people. Airflow is average to start with, I suggest using electrical tape or such to mask the many holes on the sides and rear of the case, as well as between the fan-wall and the backplane bay. I noticed a several degree drop in drive temperatures after doing this. The reason being is that there is very little room in the drive bays for airflow, you'll need a decent negative pressure effect going on to pull any large amount of air through the front.

Overall Review: I currently utilize this case for a lab SAN running OpenIndiana/Napp+It. So far it has 10 7200 RPM 3TB drives, 4 2TB drives and a few other various drives. As mentioned in the cons, the power supply is critical on this. I have an extremely large Corsair 900+W PSU on mine and had backplane issues where drives would randomly vanish. I removed the Y splitter cables and bought SATA to Molex connectors, it solved all my problems. If you are like me and started with much less than the 24 drives this accommodates, I suggest moving a spare hard drive through each slot and verifying that it shows up and works. One of my main concerns was not knowing about a defective back plane until much later down the road. Save yourself the hassle and check as soon as possible. Also, there is a fairly large thread over on the storage sub-forum of Hard-Forum for Norco case owners. I would highly advise anyone that owns or is looking to own one, review it. In the end, this is a very good case for the price, assuming you don't get one with bad backplanes like others have received.

Pros: • This case excides any expectation that I had especially given the price. I am using this as a home server/media server/client backups server 2012r2 ssd/hdd 3-way mirror space. I am using the 8 sata ports onboard and https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118142 • The unit I received is updated from the new egg description as I received 3x120mm nice!!! • The holes for the sas cables are well placed but take a little finagling depending on what kind of cables you get (I got the 2x https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133033 and 4x https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133034) • Rear 80mm fans are excellent output • Trays are easy enough to use and ample amount of flush mount screws are included • Whips for power buttons and usb ports on the front are plenty long enough to reach ports on opposite side of case • Everything went together quick 6/9/2017 upgrading to 4 stars would like to do 4.5 but I cant do it to 5 because of my original issues device has been stable but I am still nervous about using the bays as plug and play so I only pull the drives if device is powered off

Cons: • Rear 80mm fans are to loud for the family room, ordered some Noctua NF-A8 PWM 80mm Case Fan to see how they do • First hour after build 5/23/2017My bottom backplane had some type of issue resulting in each of the 4 SSD’s in it to fry. The smoke came out cooked etc.… (thank goodness for resiliency) this was all known good hardware that had been in use in the previous setup. Sent email to NORCO to see about getting a replacement back plane. Set rating to 1 egg • 5/24/2017 NORCO contacted me and we exchanged information and they will send me a replacement plane set rating to 2 eggs • 5/26/2017 received replacement plane, install of the plane was a little annoying had to un-cable everything and take the fan wall out so I could get a screw driver at the hold down screws. Just in case it was not the plane but instead my power plugs I volt meter tested it as well. Put everything back together and put in a 1 sacrificial SSD and ran if under load for 90 min and it did not fail so I added a 2nd and it is currently taking some load. Things are looking good, set rating to 3 eggs

Overall Review: don't be stupid like me and assume something like this with so many bays that they all work 100%. test with your non production / sacrificial drives first will update this as my comfort level improves, I am very hopefully to give this a 5 star as I think that my bad plane may have been a one off