iStarUSA Group Mini-ITX Box Fit 1U Flex (S-21)

i3-8100GIGABYTE Z370N WIFISamsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe2X HGST Travelstar 0S03563Noctua NH-L9IFSP Group Flex ATX 220W 80 PLUS CertifiedNice little itx case. All steel case with plastic bezel. Plenty of room on the inside for wire management without it being too cramped. No issue with clearance of M.2 NVME ssd on the back of the motherboard and the motherboard stand offs giving you plenty of room. I was looking for a case for a low power/heat build that I could put into a dusty environment and this seemed to work. I found the flex ATX power supply to be cheaper then that of a pico psu with the power brick on top of it. Most other itx cases that did come with power supplies were very under powered and flaky for what I needed. Also make sure you get a 4pin to 8pin atx adapter if you tend to use newer mother boards,one bad thing about this case is that I doesn't come with any feet though I just used some furniture felt pad feet

Pros:- It is tiny! It is about as small as is possible with the component compatibility it has.- It is rugged. For the $55 I paid for this I was expecting it to feel more like other cheap stamped cases I’ve used. However, this thing has a military-grade feel, especially the front panel.- The top of the case lifts off to add/remove components. It comes with 3 screws: 2 philips heads and 1 thumb screw. The way this panel slots in makes the philips screws optional, so it allows you to decide if you want something tool-less or more tamper-proof.- Uses a proper server power supply form factor (very hard to find in non-rack mount cases)- Space for an expansion card (very hard to find in this size case)- Available mounting accessories. You can buy wall-mount of vesa mounting parts for about $10 which allow this case to be put almost anywhere.Cons- Airflow. The front 80mm fan in the front has a very restricted inlet, the design of the front panel blocks most of the available air. This would be an easy design change, and I find the decision to obstruct the only usable intake to be very confusing.- Airflow again. The side 60mm fan conflicts with the PCIe slot. The product page says you could put a thin (10mm) fan here but even that would block the PCIe slot. If you’re not using the PCIe slot then you could easily fit a standard thickness fan.- Cooler height. My build uses an Intel Pentium G4560 which comes with the smallest intel stock cooler. Even that cooler was about 5mm too tall and would conflict with an expansion card. I ended up using a Noctua NH-L9i which is just 37mm tall and you really couldn’t go any taller with an expansion card installed.- Drive Mount. In my build I decided to use an m.2 drive, which I’m very glad I did since the drive mount on the top panel interferes with the front 80mm fan. This means that if you want to mount a 2.5” hdd/ssd you can’t mount a front fan, which makes the case useless. Also since, there are no ventilation holes on the underside of the case, I wouldn’t want an itx motherboard with an rear m.2 slot (as many do) and would only pair this case with an itx board with a top m.2 slot.- Doesn’t come with rubber feet, which are required to not damage any surface you set it onto.- You will need a PCIe riser cable (not included) in order to use the expansion slot.What would make it 5 stars:All it would take to make this 5 stars would be to put 2x 80mm fan mounts on the front of the case with a more open inlet (bonus if there was a filter), add more ventilation holes on the back, and move the top drive mount 10mm further back. Those are all tiny changes, but would make this case infinitely better.I’ve still given it four stars because it is so nicely built and because there are no other cases that really compete with this one.

Case is fantastic. Very sturdy feeling, much more rugged than any other PC case i've used. Currently using Silverstone FX350-G power supply (350W Gold Rated) and had to modify case slightly to get it to fit. Case was able to fit Wraith Spire cooler (70mm height), but had to remove the hard drive bracket to get it to fit. Also as others have noted, the case may scratch your desk if you slide it around, so make sure to be careful of this.

The good:Very well built case.Good dimensions.Compact, but just the right height to fit a vertical msata drive I have problems with in my previous case).Standard power supply (sort of) for such a small case.Usually such small cases demand external power supplies, or custom built ones.Pretty easy to work with (make sure to put the power supply into the case first).Not so good:An awful blue power led that will light up your entire room (I ended up not connecting it and decided to use hdd led instead which is more bearable).In my unit, two screws holding the top on the sides were screwed in "too well" and had to be sawed off.No big deal, as the screw in the back is more then adequate for that purpose.USB 2.0 front ports (would be nice to have 3.0).Power switch is sort of flimsy, not sure how long it is going to last.The bad:Extremely long internal usb cable.Long enough to complete a full circle inside the case.Makes cable management (naturally not great in such a small case) more complicated then it should.

Be careful - my employer purchased 50 of these enclosures (did not purchase via Amazon). After a couple of years we purchased more using the exact same part number. The enclosures received for the 2nd order were the same height and width but had a slightly larger depth. That did not affect us. What did affect us is that iStarUSA increased the height of the standoffs on the lid that the HDD/SSD bracket attaches to. When attempting to install the lid to the enclosure the HDD/SSD bracket to hit the fan we had installed in the enclosure. This was entirely due to the standoffs being taller on the newer purchase of enclosures. Exact same fan used on both purchases of the enclosure. Now we have to grind down the height of the standoff in order to get the lid installed on the enclosure. I gave 2 stars because the enclosure is attractive, well built and provides lots of options but it really irks me that a company can change the specifications of a product and call it the exact same part number.