Inwin Development IW-MS04-01-S265 265w Mini Server ITX Tower (Case Only)

This case was exactly what I was looking for. A 4 bay, ITX NAS chassis that is small, and isn't super expensive. That turned out to be not such an easy task. The only other option I could find that was readily available was a SuperMicro chassis that was basically the exact same as this one, but more expensive, and required a front panel wire adapter if you use anything but a SuperMicro motherboard. It has a good, if maybe a slightly loose slim ODD mounting system. I used this bay for an Icy Dock 2.5" hot swappable bay(12.7mm model). The thermals are pretty good, but not great. It seems the rear fan ends up pulling a lot of air through the side vents instead of through the hard drives. So I put some painters tape over the side vents( I may be doing the same to my front vents soon too). The product page doesn't specify, but this 100% comes with the 265w power supply. On that note, it is very good. The fan is pretty quiet to where I couldn't hear it over the hard drives. and even with my ear right next to it, I heard no whining or hissing coming from it, which I was not expecting. I was really expecting it to be kinda garbage. It also has all the perfect cables for the case, at the perfect lengths, with an extra set of two SATA connections, just in case you need them. I think the biggest downside for my on this case is the backplane. More specifically, the fact that it doesn't pass through the HDD temperature data to the SATA controller. SMART data does, just not live temperatures. So in TrueNAS, I can't monitor the temperatures in real time, I have to wait for it to finish a SMART test, and then read the results of that. If it weren't for that, the backplane is fine. it can control the fan if you want, and can have its fan curve changed with some DIP switches. Along with a GPIO header which it provides a pinout for, but I'm not actually sure why it is there or what can interface with it.

Bought it back in 2019 for a few bucks less than it is now, almost 3 years later. Although, mine came with the 265w bronze SFF PSU. InWin also sells a gold 350w SFF PSU for this case, but upon request for a quote a few months after the purchase, they quoted almost the same amount as the case which was too pricey for me. Anyways, the case is tight to work in, but the removable MBO tray at least somewhat helps. I paired it with a cheap B550 Asrock Fatal1ty Gaming ITX board, an Athlon 200GE, 16gb RAM and 4 Red Plus drives, and stuck an NVME to the back of the board which is not ideal, since the poor thing goes over 60c under not-so-heavy loads. There is some clearance between the board and the MBO tray, but not enough for a passive heatsink, but that shouldn’t be a problem for motherboards that have NVME slot on top of the board. Speaking of heat, the drives are cooking in this thing. You should be ok with smaller drives (4 and 6tb Red Plus ones), but anything bigger and the temps are not so comfortable. 8tb ones were always around 45c in idle and lower 50s under load, and the 10tb ones are in lower 50s in idle and up to 59c under load. Still a few degrees lower than max, but still way above anything that should be considered reasonable. Also, I recommend getting a MBO that has its SATA ports in the lower right corner, instead of upper right or, worst option, in the middle of the side of the board, because they will sit right under the middle of the HDD cage and it will be a major PITA to plug/unplug them. That being said, my HTPC died just the other day and still waiting for a replacement PSU and MBO because either one or both failed. I suspect the PSU because I think it overheated. We moved from US back to EU and as the memes say, there ain’t no AC here so the entire computer was getting pretty toasty (despite the low end hardware), and since the PSU fan became noticeably louder under load, I presume the included PSU gave up. I mean, everything is still spinning, no bad smell coming from PSU, but the PC will not post. Will update the review when I pin point the culprit. Speaking of high HDD temps, I have decided to stick a 120mm Noctua Flex under the HDD cage with either zipties or doublesided tape, since there are no screw holes for a fan there. There are three diagonal cutouts under the HDD cage and 3 of 4 drives will be getting at least some airflow that way. There are smaller cutouts on top of the HDD cage, but they are too small and there is enough space to stick a mere 80/92mm fan there, in the slim ODD slot, but the fan will be choked by the top panel, so that is not ideal. Still do not know where the air pushed from under the cage will exist, hopefully the rear 120mm Noctua Flex will be enough to exhaust some of it. There is also space in front of the case and under the hdd cage to stick, according to my not-so-expert measurement, 2 maybe even 3 40x10/20mm fans, but there is a lot of plastic and mesh on the front cover so the airflow will be questionable. If the 120mm under the HDD cage does not help, that is my next step. As for the PSU, it has to be SFF. FLEX will not fit, IIRC. Now, there are a few available here in EU, but most are FSP ones that have the fan on the front of the PSU, so the hot air from PSU is exhausted into the case. And even if it is a modular one, you will have a decent amount of cables tucked right in front of that fan, so again airflow is dicey, to saythe least. Therefore, I had to opt for a PSU that has the fan on the back of the unit, Silverstone FX350. All good, but the fan on those is reportedly extremely loud. People have been replacing it with 40x10mm Noctua ones, but then the PSU overheats since the 40x10mm Noctuas are too weak. And 40x20mm will not fit, since the original fan is 40x15mm. There are some guides for Delta fans (internet is your friend for the exact model), which are 40x15mm, but then you have to switch polarity on the fan and some people reported 100% success, while there are a few that did not fare well. I’ll give it a try with the stock fan and I will be adding a 40x20mm Noctua on either the side of the PSU or in front of it, to supply air from the case into the PSU and hopefully the stock fan will exhaust it through the back of the PSU. And if that fails, well… I guess I will be modding it as well. All in all, thank you for reading my blog and beware of the temps in this case. I am still looking for different solutions, different cases, but they are either much bigger (Silverstone ones, for example), or the layout of the case is even worse than this one. I’ll give this one another chance, because I do like it and I wish InWin would make a few revisions, maybe increase its size by 10-20% or come up with a solution that would include a fan for the HDD cage. Oh, and if you have AC and you crank it to 68F, forget the troubles with the overheating, you should be fine, lol.

Really great case for a home server build. You need to get your own SATA cable. Manual is not included in the packaging but can be found on inwins website

The build quality is excellent. The backplane is a little bit misaligned but can easily be fixed by loosing and refastening the screws while the disks are in.

Great case !!! If anyone is looking to build a mini server or NAS this is a perfect box !

No manual. Will change review if one is made available. I am googling around finding low-res PDFs, but no directions for these cables. Case comes with extra LED cables, but doesn't tell you where to plug them in. (LAN1, LAN2, FAIL, HDD_LED, ID LED). I found a forum post that said not to plug them in at all, but those LEDs in the front should be mapped to this SATA controller somewhere. I'd like to know when a drive is failing! Case comes with no SATA cables!

I've built many a mini server and was surprised to like this one so much. Reasons: 1. Comes with power supply 2. Affordable 3. Hot swap! 4. Drive trays handle 2.5" also 5. Motherboard mounts on tray that slides in from the back so you can plug all the header cables and other components easy 6. No sharp edges 7. Metal is solid enough where it matters. Does not feel super cheap 8. Can add DVD if I wanted to 9. No @#$! clear window so suitable for business and my cabling doesn't have to be neat 10. 2 thumbscrews to open 11. Small 12. Handles up to 5 drives (1 non hotswap 2.5" where DVD would go) 13. Hot swap drive bays each have power and activity lights driven by the backplane. LED can turn color to indicate drive failure (not tested) Other comments: Download manuals from website, none in the box Can't speak to quality of P/S or cooling as it's only recently built. At least P/S has certs and is bronze There's a Fail and I.D. LED on the front if your motherboard supports it. 2 NIC LEDs also. Mfg sells higher wattage Gold p/s as well as 12Gb SAS backplane. Interestingly, the manual for the 6Gb one that comes with it mentions it supports SAS 6GBs TIP: Reading the backplane manual, you MAY want to plug the main fan into the connector on the backplane instead of the motherboard as it seems to be able to monitor temps of hot swap drive cage and vary fan speed.

Inwin is not a name that immediately comes to mind when shopping for a case and certainly not when shopping for a specialty case. I stumbled upon this case while perusing Amazon for a mITX case for my NAS build. And here we are. I'm pretty impressed with this case, but the overall package includes a power supply and it's junk. Typically, cases don't come with a power supply and when they do, the power supply is usually junk, and this is no exception. Deducting one star because of the dangerously cheap power supply the case comes with. Would be better if it just didn't come with one at all and then I'd have given it five stars. More on the PS in a sec. This is definitely a specialty case, pretty much only good for building a NAS or virtualization host in. For these niche use cases, this is a fantastic case. I built a TrueNAS system in mine. Bottom line is this case is small, holds four full size drives and is pretty much inaudible. You can easily have this in the same room you work in. All the metal edges are nicely rounded over and the removable motherboard tray is a great idea because trying to cable front panel headers with the motherboard in the case is almost impossible. The 120mm Adda-brand fan it comes with is nice and quiet, but I replaced it with a 1,700 rpm Noctua fan, which gives more airflow at the same noise level. The hard drive cage does not have it's own fan. The single 120mm fan pulls air through the cage (the backplane has slots cut out for airflow). If you are using 7200rpm drives, you may want to swap the stock fan out for one with more static pressure/airflow. The front door is not removable but it does swing open about 120 degrees or so. The door is heavily perforated and airflow to the drive cage is not impeded, which is good, b/c the drive cage does not have it's own fan, it is cooled by the single case fan which pulls air through the cage and the rest of the case. Not mentioned is that the backplane has DIP switches to set the trigger point for a HD over-temp buzzer. If I remember correctly, the options were 39C, 45C, 49C and 55C. But, as the temp sensor is on the rear of the backplane, it reads the air temp passing over it, not the actual temp of the hard drives which is likely higher than the temp of the air flowing over them. Semi-useless feature, but worth mentioning anyway. The case holds four, 3.5" drives in the drive cage and can hold two 2.5" drives as well on the top/sides of the internal structure. However, as stock the case will only hold a single 2.5" drive on the side. Using the top location (slim OD bay) requires an extra bracket that does not come with the case. I think that's a foul but not deducting a star for it. Oddly enough, the case comes with a bracket to mount a slim optical drive on the top. I can't see anyone actually needing to mount an optical drive in this case, but you can if you want to. Including that 2.5" drive adaptor bracket would be a good move for the future. OK, so the case is really great, but you're going to have to spend a little more money on a decent, name-brand FlexATX power supply. The "PowerMan" brand power supply it comes with is utter garbage and almost took $800 worth of motherboard and RAM with it when it blew not 5 minutes after powering it up for the first time. Typically, I never use no-name power supplies but took a chance this time and I got very lucky that the PS didn't take anything with it when it blew. I'm guessing it popped a capacitor or two b/c of the squealing and popping sound it made for a few seconds before shutting off. To say I sucked all of the air out of the room when the PS blew would be an understatement. If you buy this case, buy a good PS like this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BF1H5R1?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details right off the bat. Throw the stock PS in the trash immediately. If you think about it, most cases don't come with a PS anyway, so you can rationalize the purchase that way.

Excellent product, great supplier to deal with.