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Aluminum Server Case Review
Anonymous Coward writes: "Hi guys, Here is a review of the Lian Li PC626, which is a server case made entirely out of aluminium.
Unex from Belgium :)" Or aluminum, which is the only proper spelling, of course. Are these cases actually worth the premium price? I may be having heat problems (for the first time) with our latest PC purchase, so I'm suddenly more interested in cooling...
It's aluminium, check out any periodic table. Aluminum is just another example of American bastardisation of the english language, much like the use of center/centre (meter/metre), *ise/*ize.
Can you imagine that baby burning? The scenario is something like this:
John: Hey Sid? Wanna check out my new Athlon? It's overclocked something awful.
Sid: Yeah, cool. What's that white fire in your room?
John yells some incomprehensible syllables (mostly vowels), grabs the fishtank and runs to the fire
Sid: Hey John! That might be a bad id...
Boom
Ah well... At least they don't make fire extinguishers out of aluminium...
The best computer cases in the worlds IMO are available at www.coolermaster.com. They're so pretty. They have extra fans, alluminum body, and USB in the front, which is great for my gravis gamepad pro USBs. They're also extremely roomy and easy to work with. The trouble is finding a place that sells them, because the company doesn't sell them direct, and they have distributors in Japan and Europe, but not the US. They aren't all too expensive either. I personally reccomend the ATC-201 for anyone who needs a full tower and worries about heat. The fan in the top of the cast helps SO much.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
While aluminium is a metal with a silvery colour, aluminum is one with a silvery COLOR.
My biggest justification for the extra $$ spent to get the cases was this: I go through hardware like mad, but the one thing that will remain constant in my systems for the next few years is my case. It is an investment that will undoubtedly be in my top performance machine for years to come. If you can reccommend another purchase to fight hardware obsolescence as effectively, I'm all ears.
The best part is the lightness of these cases.
If you go to a lot of lans or move your box from place to place a lot aluminum is the only way to go.
The English chemist Sir Humphry Davy who discovered the element derived the name from alumina, which was taken from the French tanning mineral "alum".
Sir Humphrey first called it alumium, then aluminum, and finally aluminium. Somehow the Americans ended up calling it by the intermediate name and it stuck.
It's a bastardization of the proper spelling. Or should that be bastardisation?
Actually, aluminium is the only proper spelling in Belgium: in French, in Flemish, and even in German. For once we all agree on something!
-- Slef
You can easily pay over $16,000 for a high end dual cpu Compaq Proliant server, $600 for a fabulous server case is not that bad. I've built three systems using the Lian Li PC-60 USB case and I've never been happier with any case. The newer model has an internal bracket that mounts five hard drives right behind two front mounted fans with dust filter and four front mounted USB ports for motherboards like the Asus A7A266 which has headers on the board for the four ports. It's an expensive case (now $159 from Directron.Com) but it's a joy to work with and it does keep the components cool.
Damn it, I was about to go onto page three in the review, and then this happened: /home/sites/site1/web/index.php on line 4
Could not connect to database!
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in
So does Slashdot ever warn sites that they're going to be posting a link to them?
RFC2119
I was wondering the same thing. If you made it out of steel or something that conducts heat better, then it would conduct some of the heat from inside the case to the outside. Or looked at another way, it would conduct some of the coolness from outside the case to the inside. Any thermo gurus care to elucidate?
Yeah, I know they're just OEMs, the SC-750 is actually made by some other company (which I can't recall now), but anyway if it was picked by Supermicro then it must be very high quality.
Also, Supermicro always bundles high-quality power supplies, an increasingly important point with the powerhogs that are Dual Athlons and Xeons. In my case, the Sparkle FSP300-60GT -- hasn't failed yet (and the load's high on it, believe me, plus it's 24/7), and should be enough power for most needs. Unless you're building the ultimate peltier/watercooling rig.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
Mine is one of the medium-high tower models. It's a really nice case, but yes, it was awfully overpriced. And mine didn't even come with a power supply - by the time you add the price of a premium power supply, it gets really spendy. However, I don't reget the purchase.
I got sick of all those garbage $50 cases made out of stamped metal with the razorblade sharp inside edges, cheaply riveted together.
The Lian Li case looks good (especially with Tux, Gnu, and Linux stickers on it!). More importantly, it fit my motherboard perfectly (a dual Slot 1 Tyan) and the drive cage at the bottom is PERFECT for a small RAID setup. I've got four 60 GB Maxtors stacked in there, and with the twin drive cooling fans right in front of them they don't even get warm to the touch. (I have a lot of MP3 and OGG files...) The cooling works well for the twin 800 Mhz CPUS as well.
The whole case comes apart with thumbscrews. You can pull out the power supply, the motherboard, all the drive cages... very quick and easy.
Best of all, even with all those fans it isn't too loud. The twin cooling fans on the front have a three-way switch that lets you adjust the speed (and noise) as appropriate for your cooling needs. I have mine at max speed, and I still have no trouble sleeping next to it.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I've got both the PC60 and PC70. The former is a midi for home users, whilst the latter is a big tower sold as server case. Both are carefully designed, but I definitely prefer the PC60. It has a removable mobo tray, thumb screws (which both the PC70 has not) and on the whole is really a lovely piece of pc case: lots of bays, no sharp edges etc. etc.
Concerning the cooling - well with all those fans it should be allright, and until now I've experienced no problems with my Athlon 1.33, GeforceGTS2 etcetera.
Apart from that, I myself can't really measure the difference to other cases. Of course both cases emit some noise (because of the fans), which is tolerable at least for the PC60. As you know, both good cooling and little noise are hard to get, so if your priority lies on the latter you might want to try another case.
On the whole, I'd recommend - for the average user - the PC60, whereas the PC70 is not designed for regular hardware fiddling and a bit too loud.
Wether the PC60 is worth the extra money ? Well, I don't know. But it sure is a nice case.
There is a review of 4 casesc oo lerkasten.htm
- Coolermaster ATC-200, Coolermaster ATC-201-SX, Lian Li PC-60, Lian Li PC-61 -
in dutch and in english at:
http://www.mcdos.nl/consumenten/paginas/nieuws/
(from: GamePC, 21 April, 2001).
one quote:
"The ATC-200 still stands as one of the best aluminium cases on the market,
despite being more than a year old."
So, by now, it is at least one and a half year old allready!
But have you looked at the price of the aluminum chassis? I did not see a listing on pricewatch for the one reviewed, but the older version is starting for about $200 w/o a power supply. I like a nice chassis like the next guy and the last year or so have used the Antec SX830/840 (about $50 w/o ps sx800) for smaller boxes, the SX1030/1040 (about $60 w/o ps sx1000), or a SuperMicro 760A (about $140, but includes nice ps). For $200, you start moving into solid rack mounting chassis (with a ps).
If your boxen is running too hot, start with the basics. Clean the clutter - round your cables, bundle wire, and have airflow (not to be confused with tons of fans just making noise). If you are carving blow holes or doing other mods, the steel in these cases are a lot easier to work with than aluminum. Ducting can help with hot spots as well.
Course, nothing says I have money to blow out of my ass like a shiny aluminum chassis.... there is that. A good 3U setup will bring the proper googling, however...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
FYI, Steel does *NOT* conduct heat better. It is heavier and cheaper, and it is used in 95% of the computer cases out there. You'll never see a steel heatsink in your life - Aluminum, Copper, and Silver all do the job much better.
If you look around that (or any other) overclocking site, you'll find more cooling info than you could shake a stick at. In fact, I'm installing [overclockersonline.com] such a system as we speak.
--- Sigs are dumb.
PC-76 server case
PC-70 full tower
PC-31 mini-tower
PC-60 midi-tower
Aluminium was the officially accepted spelling here in the US too, until 1925, see the
Los Alamos National Laboratory Periodic Table entry for Element 13
They definitely are high quality cases. I just recently picked one up to build a new system and everything fits together like clockwork. The hard drives are kept nicely cool by the front two case fans blowing air over them, and the power supply and back fan more than adequately cool the AMD 1.4Ghz Thunderbird. I'm not overclocking it yet though until I find out what the acceptable heat ranges are for the processor. Currently it runs at about 47C and the system temperature is 36C. Anyone know if this is the normal range for this type of processor?
Thanks...guess I should have inferred that from the aluminum heat sinks! Overclockersonline seems down for the count right now. I found a list of thermal conductivity in W/cm-K, which listed silver at 4.2, copper at 3.9, aluminum at 2.2, and low-carbon steel at 0.7.
It's the steel heatsinks that you don't see that get you, like where some TV's horizontal output transistors are mounted on a steel bracket that doesn't dissipate heat quite fast enough for that particular transistor after it's got a few years on it.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Shayne
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
Actually, it appears Aluminium is the more correct spelling, considering the British guy who found it settled on the -ium ending himself. There's a whole article devoted to the subject at World Wide Words.
I bought a Lian-Li case because I was building a computer as a gift, and I thought it looked really slick. When it arrived, though I was shocked by how light it was -- just under 6 Kg without mobo/powersupply/etc. I've since bought 3 more for computers that I frequently move, and it really makes a difference. I am not uncomfortable carrying 2 or even all 3 of them at once (comfort including fear of dropping, that is).
Yes, they cost significantly more. They are also significantly more convienient if you have to open them up frequently. Are they better a cooling? I suspect that, for the difference in price between a "standard" case and a Lian-Li AL case, you could buy fans, etc. that would make more of a difference. Even their large server cases are refreshingly light. These cases are definitely not for everyone, but if you need a large, light, accessible, and sturdy case, I don't know of anything better.
(and if you know of anything better, I'd like to hear about it... these are awfully expensiveOne fan? That's not very redundant.
They don't make anything, they just stick their name on things then charge inflated prices
Take for example their full tower case. The PC Power & Cooling full tower case is just a California PC full tower case with a different bezel on the front & an inflated price tag.
Its the same with every product they sell, for example their mid tower case is the same as one of the big OEMs (I forget which brand) with a different bezel & again an inflated price tag.
Their heatsinks & powersupplies are no different.
I remember when they used to sell a 275 watt 'Silencer' powersupply. It turns out it was just a generic 300 watt powersupply that was just de-rated to cope with the retro-actively fitted low speed so-called 'Silencer' fan (I think just a slow speed Adda fan).
I am probably less of an environmentalist or whatever than the next guy, but I'd like to see the energy I've expended throughout the years in throwing beers cans into the recycling bin put to use.
I don't see any of these cases claiming to use recycled aluminum and I can't image there would be a less quality using it compared to virgin aluminum. So, is there a recycled aluminum case?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Well I think it is somewhere
We should have a new moderator catagory: +1 Excellent Comeback
{on topic reply, semi-off topic for the catagory}
We do. It is called Overrated. But the score is -1, sadly.
(/gomer pyle voice) You're gonna burn in hell for that one!(/end gpv)
Anywho, back on topic.
Trying to read the review, same as others, I'm getting the MySQL error.
It was pointed out that for a server case 600 dollars is not that bad. And inferring from other post, if I may, it is strong, light and has excellent cooling properties/abilities.
This is an excellent value when you consider the commodity market of today's PC hardware.
16K for a Proliant, true, but it makes you wonder how much went into the case?
Even a wild guess would put it at a 1k to 2k mark, leaving the other 14k for hardware and other components and software.
Kind of makes that 600 bucks pale in comparison, plus the {god, I hate to sound like a marketer} "added value" of having "standars compliant" bays, connectors, MB trays and mounts.
I mean, really now, adding memory to a Dell...gotta go to {almot typed goto, shudder) dell, need a newer/better mobo? ain't gonna happen unless you get the dremel tool out.
These are excellent looking and functioning cases, but, I've always been partial to the Enlight series of cases, myself, for workstation/general configs, but, for servers I just might have to look into these.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
The slashdot editor said...
"Or aluminum, which is the only proper spelling, of course"
Please, tell me, when did slashdot even give the slightest consideration to spelling? Does this means the editors will *gasp* spell check their witty comments, polls, and other writings? Oh please, tell me it ain't so!
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Talking about periodic tables: When did Natrium (Na in the table) transform in some languages into Sodium?? Or K= Kalium / Potassium?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Since the articled called the effectiveness of aluminum cases into question. Before I put my new Athlon system in my $200 Lian-Li case I ran a Q3 Demo loop and some math program that attempts to kill the cpu ;) In the traditional beige case made out of whatever with 8 fans strategically placed it maintained a system temp of about 44 F and the cpu about 48 F. I then switched it over to the Lian-Li PC+61 USB case (black aluminum, very sexy) and the system temp is now 37 F and cpu is 46 F on full load. So they do have their uses, but I mainly got mine because it was black.
You know, Asimov wrote a short story where the entire plot revolved around the difference in spelling...
Color = American spelling Colour = UK spelling
That was the point you moron. Aluminum = American spelling, Aluminium = UK spelling.
The use of spelling in this way goes back to the very founding of America. In early secret sessions of the Congress, it was decided to deliberately change certain spellings, at that time as an irritation to the British. The King's court in England would be plunged into a grammatical outrage when receiving a communication from the American colony, containing strategic abuses of the King's English. This prompted the King to send troops to whip the colonies into shape, which in turn inspired ordinary American colonists to rise up and throw off their oppressor's yoke.
This is why the "spelling bee" is such an important feature of America's education system. As any boy can tell you, "bee" is for "bomb". Indoctrinating young Americans to misspell is the secret weapon which America has used to devastating effect against its enemies, who are so flummoxed by the apparent illiteracy of their opponent that they forget to watch for incoming Tomahawks. Misspellings are behind some of the key events which have shaped our history. Next time you see a /. editor use "then" instead of "than", turn on your TV - the consequences are sure to follow swiftly.
Perhaps it's just a /. editor making a joke.
Certainly not a sign of the apocalypse, or if it is, we're all doomed :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Actually, it was soon after the united States became independant Franklin and Webster got together and started to change the language.
Thankfully Webster kept Franklin from doing what he wished, which was dropping all the silent letters in words. Then things would have been really screwed up.
'Though, we'd have more literate Americans.
(And I'm thinking my karma's going to take a beating from that...)
I see lots of OT threads being created on Brit versus American spelling here. Maybe this reference will shed some light.
Canada is (as usual) comfortably wedged between the Brit and American columns of the table -- sometimes Canucks use the Brit spelling exclusively, sometimes they use the American one exclusively, and sometimes they use both. How diplomatic!
Considering a 'route' to a destination is pronounced with a soft 'ou' as in "oooh", a 'router' would be properly pronounced 'rooter' since that's exactly its job.
However, 'rowter' has stuck in N-A, so I guess its here to stay.
Common usage has a lot to do with spelling and pronunciation in English, which is why its different in Canada from the U.K. and Jersey from Tennessee from Texas.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Al may be light and slick-looking, but it's not really a thermal improvement over steel. If you really want to improve heat transfer through the case, try these:
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
One note I saw in another review of these cases (In the November Linux Journal) was that they are about as hard as very hard cheese. The thumb screws should not replaced because the force of a normal screw driver will strip the screws.
There are times when I just want to build my own case. I wonder where I can find sheet titanium... (Actually, you used to be able to get scraps from Boeing. Probably not big enough to build a case and too damn hard to work. Have to talk to my father-in-law. He has a metal shop.)
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
With you moving them around all the time, maybe you can answer a question that I had about them.
How do they hold up against scratches and brushes? I'll be the first to admit that I am kinda rough with the cases that I throw into my trunk all the time. I'd really be afraid that the case would look horrible after just a few of my moves.
Is this an issue?
load "linux",8,1
Yeah, and you could sit your coffee mug on your case to keep it warm. Everybody wins!
load "linux",8,1
It's just as effective. Many antennas are made from aluminum.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Lian Li Website
Lian Li PC-70 aluminium full tower computer case
Lian Li PC-76 server case
Lian Li PC-60 computer case
Coolermaster ATC-201SX alloy case
Lian Li HDD Caddie Page
RH-620 Alloy HDD Caddie
RH-600 Alloy HDD Caddie
RH-29 Alloy HDD Caddie
Do you have any documentation supporting this? This has all of the markings of an urban legend.
We just get sick of Marketing changing the product name every 6 months.
Americans are stubborn.
It is properly called aluminIum, because the -Ium suffix denotes a metallic element.
Yhe entire English-Speaking world calls it aluminium, but since we are dodos, we insist on alumminum. Probably easier to say.
From Alcoa's own site is this bit of history:
Power to the Peaceful
Some of us require x86... thanks for being a zealot, though.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
I bought an aluminum case this summer, the Coolermaster ATC 201. Best case I've ever worked with, without a doubt. I've tried Antec, Inwin, and Enlight, but the Coolermaster is just the perfect mix for well-constructed and stylish for me.
:)
I've gotten many comments like "Wow that is a badass case" since I built this machine. Hell, my girlfriend even thought it looked cool, and she is not anything close to a geek
Beyond that, it runs 15 degrees cooler than some of my friends computers, and that is without any crazy fans.
I did put in an Enermaz power supply. I have been very happy with the setup.
Basically you have the conductivity junction-to-junction, for which aluminum has a high coefficient. Then, as you said, you have the internal transmissive coefficient that determines how rapidly heat flows through the medium.
Aluminum scores very well in both, but copper is more transmissive and less conductive. If you've ever soldered on heavy copper you've probably felt the pain of soldering one land only to desolder one nearby...
This is exactly why the best pots are copper-bottomed: even heat transfer.
What's even worse is trying to solder a heavy gauge copper conductor. (e.g. AWG No. 6) You can't get the solder to flow because the copper transmits all of the heat right out of the iron and away from what you're trying to solder... You practically need a propane torch to get it right... This is why electricians rely on heavy duty compression lugs instead of trying to solder. For really heavy duty connections (like grounding and bonding with AWG 4/0), exothermic welding (similar to thermite) is used to generate enough heat to make a good connection. (OK, slightly OT, but it illustrates how well copper transmits heat...)
--z
In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster imagines you!
Apparently, it's as a result of some dock-worker misspelling the word "aluminium" as "aluminum" on the side of a crate full of the stuff when it was shipped to the US for the first time.
At least, that's what I was told.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Before the 20th century, aluminium, while very common in the earth's crust, was extremely rare in it's metallic form. The reason was that no one could figure out a cheap way to convert it from ore form (bauxite) to a metal. Once a process was discovered to do this cheaply, new companies started up refine and manufacture aluminium products.
One of these companies, the Aluminium Corporation Corporation of America, forerunner of Alcoa, sent an order out to a printer for stationary, forms, etc. Somewhere along the line, someone dropped the 'i' and everything wound up getting printed up as "aluminum". The company decided, since not that many people had ever heard of the stuff, to go with the new spelling instead of going through the expense of having everthing reprinted. There it is: a spelling mistake that got institutionalized (institutionalised for the Brits).
This is not unique: The national park up in Maine, Acadia, is called that because when the first maps were made of the park, the mapmaker dropped the r in Arcadia. The Park Service decided to just go with it instead of reprinting the maps.
Also, here's the reason we are not the United States of Columbia: A few years after Columbus landed in the New World, another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, was running around Europe claiming he disovered the New World. German mapmakers (the best in the world at the time)had nothing else to go on and started making maps based on his descriptions. They then misspelled his name as America and that's what got put on all the maps.