Is this a CM Stacker whacker?
The iTower wants badly to be a server case for the home. For a start there’s its incredible weight through being steel, and its lockable magnetically sealed front door. It has a brace splitting the middle of the case which features a height adjustable/positional card stabiliser and a positional air duct for the CPU – both of which can be removed from the brace, or the brace itself can be removed from the case entirely. It can even take a mini-redundant power supply if you’re that way inclined. While one side of the case is removable (as well as padlockable and able to be held in place by a tool-less clasp), the other is securely pop riveted into place.Then there’s the desktop concessions – for a start, it’s designed to look good, not just be purely functional and left in a rack somewhere. On the plus side, the front can be removed if you need the extra depth and don’t care so much for the aesthetics. Then there’s the front IO panel – 4x USB, FireWire, headphone and microphone ports – although depending on your server setup front accessible ports could be an advantage.Finally it’s a desktop form factor – not the most rackable in the world, and better suited for someone’s floor.It does a few nifty things – for a start it offers hot-swappable trays for SATA drives (oooh), with its own circuit board to transfer power and data. This is achieved through pass-through SATA ports and four pin power connectors, but it does a few more duties as well, featuring four fan headers and access/failure LEDs for each drive so you can make sure all is well with your storage behemoth.A 90mm shrouded fan sits behind the circuitry, blowing the hot air generated by the drives into the case to eventually be vented by the 120mm fan at the back. This is a bit questionable though – the circuitry covers almost the entirety of the four 3.5" bays, stopping most air flow, greatly neutering its effectiveness. There is also no intake fan – this is all you get.There are six 5.25” bays, one of which has been sacrificed by a 5.25" to 3.5" converter. Each of these feature an excellent quick release mechanism, and Cooler Master has followed up with a pretty darn decent one for the back add in board slots as well. Frankly we’d love a whole heap of weight to be removed and despite the coolness of the hotswap bays, we think most home users would be happier with the greater flexibility offered by something like the CM Stacker.Still, if you need to do colo and for some reason can’t do a rack, or just want to appear nerdy in front of your friends this is not a bad substitute.
Issue: 107 | December, 2009