Pros: This case is an incredible value. The no-nonsense design is extremely practical and well thought out, and there is great flexibility in how this case can be used. This case is very deep (26-1/8”, 27-¼” including handles), so care should be taken that enough space is available to accommodate it and provide space for airflow to exit at the rear. The case is very spacious and has a center wall with five 80mm fans that assure positive air movement from front to back. These fans limit the temperature rise to less than one degree centigrade from intake at the front to discharge at the rear. All fan noise is buried deep inside the case. With this arrangement, noise is more wind noise than fan noise, and is quite acceptable. Cooling would still be adequate if the speed of the five fans was greatly reduced. The optional fan positions at the front and rear panels exist because these panels are the same as used in the RPC-450, which are reliant on fans at these locations for cooling.

Cons: Care has been taken to turn over the edges of the steel parts inside the case to avoid raw edges. The flange of the rear panel was bent toward the rear and riveted to the tray that serves as the sides and bottom of the case. The edges of the steel were sheared toward the center of the rear panel, and no effort was made to remove steel fibers projecting from the inner edge of flange on the rear panel. A file needs to be used to remove these raw steel fibers to prevent flesh cuts, as well as incidental scratches to any painted surfaces that come into contact the rear flange. As the case comes assembled, hard drives must be removed or inserted at the rear of the hard drive bays. This necessitates removal of the hard drive bays from the case because there is insufficient room behind the bays to get drives in and out. All hard drives in the bay need to be disconnected to remove the bay. If fans are installed in front of the hard drive bays, they must be removed to get the bays out.

Overall Review: All parts are made such that the hard drive bays can be reversed to provide for removal or insertion of hard drives from the front. If this is done, the bays will be slightly closer to the front of the case. The grills for mounting optional front fans cannot be reinstalled; however, front fans are not needed for cooling and would be in the way when drives are to be removed & installed. The front door and filter will just clear the tips of the plastic slides that mount each hard drive. Holes were punched for the two screws that fix the hard drive bays in reversed position, but were not tapped, so you will need a #6-32 tap to be able to get these screws in. If long SATA data and power cables are used, it may be possible to remove & replace drives without even removing the top panel or any screws. Protective grills will be needed in front of the fans at the center of the case to avoid damage to adjacent cables.

Pros: Big storage on the cheap. Performance is okay when they run.

Cons: DOA rate on these drives seems to be close to 25 percent. Failures within the first month are well over 30 percent. Newegg has been prompt about exchanging those that fail within 30 days, but its just not worth trouble and shipping expense to attempt to use these WD20EARS drives. If they fail after the first month, you will have to deal with WD, who in my experience always sends recertified drives. Although they usually work, some appear to be very well used.

Overall Review: I have been a big fan of WD over the years. My experience with a very large number of WD drives is that failure rates have been consistently low and performance excellent - until the WD20EARS came along. The earlier WD20EADS was a great drive, but the WD20EARS is just pathetic. I kept buying these EARS drives, thinking that by now WD would have their act together, but if anything they are getting worse. I will not be buying any more of these !!!

Pros: I have four of these and really like them a lot, but had the same problem with one as Andy 10/30/12 (Burned up my drives)

Cons: Burned up two of my hard drives several years ago. The damaged drives were my loss, as with Andy. I finally figured out that the pins that the power connectors plug onto were protruding through the circuit board too far and coming in contact with the metal frames of some of the hard drives. Only certain drive slots were involved. I cut off the protruding tips and filed them as short as I could, and the same unit has been in service now for several years. I have bought more units since then, and thought the problem had been had corrected. If your unit was purchased recently, maybe ICY DOCK never did figure out what the problem was??

Overall Review: My earlier review concerning this problem seems to have disappeared, as well as those of others who also had this same problem. Some editing has apparently been done here. I'm not too happy about that.

Pros: Review dated 11/29/2011 sums up what you can expect from this type of restoration kit. If you are very careful, the lights can look pretty good when you get done, but the useful life of the restoration is short. Might be useful if you are going to sell the car soon, but not worthwhile doing if you intend to keep it.

Cons: Comments are based on using the 3M kit mentioned in the 11/14/2011 review. Using a power drill to grind off the clouded surface of the lenses as contemplated by 3M seemed much too risky to attempt because of the very high probability of damaging the adjacent painted surfaces. The same materials can be used to do the job by hand, but will take many, many hours. Within a few months the plastic that remains will again cloud up severely. I eventually replaced both headlight assemblies at a cost of about $150 each plus very significant labor costs for installation and realignment, i.e., the cost will probably be $600 to $800.

Overall Review: There are no shortcuts to solving this problem. The plastic material in your headlight lenses is old and has deteriorated. Even if you polish up the surface, it will soon cloud up again. The only long term solution is complete replacement, which is very expensive. If you have a good car, it is best to “bite the bullet” and replace the light assemblies; otherwise you probably need to think about replacing the car. A kit like this might help you get rid of the car without the problem being understood by the buyer. Be sure that the replacement car has glass headlight lenses. Headlight lens seem to cloud up much worse than other lights, perhaps because of the heat from the lights.

Pros: This is a great piece of software, but definitely showing its’ age. Not too hard to install in IDE mode. Drivers for AHCI mode can probably be installed if your mobo has a floppy port and you get a chance to press F6 to install. See my reviews dated 5/2 & 5/23.

Cons: Invested perhaps 200 hours trying to install using AHCI mode on a mobo that doesn’t have a floppy port. Finally succeeded using a USB floppy drive. An effort appears to have been made to put a more up-to-date face on this software. There are two different installation routines, either of which may run. I have no idea what determines which routine runs, and am not about to experiment further, having finally achieved a successful installation. The newer routine has a window with a “button” to click to install drivers, and issues a message “The driver requires the machine to reboot A:iaAHCI.inf”. It then continues to unsuccessful completion after long pauses during which nothing appears to happen. The older routine gives the familiar message “press F6 to install drivers”, and may work if you have everything exactly right. The older routine did not run during the first 10 days of my effort with the above mobo, but ran right away during install on another mobo that had a floppy port

Overall Review: Spent a huge amount of time unsuccessfully trying to slipstream AHCI drivers. See my 5/23 review. There is a useful but very complicated tutorial called Slipstream Windows Home Server on wiki.wegotserved.com. Unfortunately it is old, seems to be missing at least one step, and doesn’t provide enough explanation of what it is trying to do. Deviating slightly from any step causes failure. The “DOS” drivers appear to be AHCI drivers furnished by your mobo manufacturer. Use the earlier version of Windows AIK; do not try version 2.0. Persons very experienced with slipstreaming have apparently used this tutorial, but it looks like most people give up and install in IDE mode. I got stuck at Step 7 of Slipstreaming because I don’t come up with the folders shown in Picture 1-WIM and don’t understand where they are supposed to come from or what their content should be.

Pros: This is a really nicely-made case. Lian-Li does aluminum cases awesomely well.

Cons: The remote control works, but is only passably adequate when this case is directly on the other side of the room. With any other placement, you will be looking for an expensive remote of the type sold only through Home Theater installers. I would gladly trade the provided hard drive bays for space to mount a 5-in-3 backplane such as made Icx Doxx, which would allow storage drives to be moved easily to & from external USB cases or backplanes in other machines. Even though this case is large enough to accommodate them, powerful CPU’s and other components that generate a lot of heat should best be avoided in an HTPC. The best way to get heat out of a case is with exhaust fans. Attempts to mount more powerful 80mm fans on the rear panel create much too much noise for HTPC usage. Exhaust from the second fan must be pushed through perforations in the metal panel, which makes a second fan noisy and largely ineffective.

Overall Review: I am tempted to saw holes in the rear panel and mount wire fan grills to improve airflow, but hate to cut into a case made this beautifully. What is really needed is at least one 120mm exhaust fan located in the top panel. Probably the best way to avoid running “Toasty” would be to use one of the new socket 1155 “T” series processors that limit TDP to 35 or 45 watts. The video features integrated into these CPU’s eliminate the need for a separate video card in an HTPC.

Have not yet used the merchandise purchased but looks well packed and good.