Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"As the name implies, Define Mini is the smaller sibling of the acclaimed and award winning Define R2/R3 case. Being a Micro ATX version of Define R2/R3, it offers a number of interesting functions with a very stylish appearance. It's a case focused on low noise level, without neglecting other important features such as cooling, expandability and ease of use. The Define Mini excels in including a lot of features in a small size!"

A few years ago, I was an unabashed Shuttle XPC fan - all my computers were Shuttle XPCs. I loved the small form factor, but after a couple of years of breakdowns and tiresome noise, I migrated away from Shuttle XPCs and now have several computers using mid-sized towers. They're nice Lian Li cases, but ultimately they're still far bigger than they need to be - I don't need space for six hard drives, four optical drives, etc. That's why the Define Mini is quite intriguing - by using Mini ATX / Micro ATX motherboards, you can get a case that still manages to fit six hard drives, yet is only 40 CM (16 inches) tall. Not bad! It's a small, attractive case with a bunch of well-thought out of options - including sound-dampening side panels.

"How cool is this home server chassis, self-builders? Coming out of Sweden, the home of groovy design, comes the Fractal Design Array Mini ITX NAS Case, a small footprint, achingly cool chassis packing six 3.5" hard drive bays and room for an extra SSD (for your system drive, I'm sure)."

I've been on the lookout for a replacement case for my custom built home server for a while, and I think I may just have found it. My current home server is a mismatch of components, a little noisy, not particularly aesthetic, and probably not very energy friendly. We Got Served have a news post up today with details of this very nice, small mini itx case that holds six 3.5" drives which is sufficient for my needs in the near future, and the price at $193/£126 is quite reasonable. I will certainly be looking to purchase this case very soon in order to replace the current setup with something that will not look out of place in the living room if it needs to live there.