When it comes to cases, it takes a company that likes to be a little different, to make something a little out of the ordinary. Sigma steps in with the Sigma Metal Storm UNICORN Mid-Size ATX case.
Out of the box, you realize this is a heavy duty case. The panels are all good thick steel, and the door on the face is mostly thick aluminum. It was built for cooling too. There are fans aplenty, and more cooling directly for the hard drive rack alone! There is a 120mm red LED fan in the faceplate behind the door, there is a 120mm red blade fan in the back, a 80mm red LED in the window over the CPU area, and a 80mm fan over the video card/PCI area. While there is no fan, there is a bracket and fan outlet for a 80mm on the right side of the case to cool the hard drives.
The faceplate and door for this case really make its exterior stand out. The top and bottom are trimmed in chrome, and the top chrome trim contains the power and reset buttons, and the power and HDD activity LEDs. Inside the door on the faceplate you find four 5.25 drive bays and two 3.5 drive bays, along with 2 USB ports, and headphone and mic ports. My only issue with the inside of the door happens to be the wiring. The wiring has a small section of heat shrink tube that is glued to the inside of the door, so you still see the wiring. Other than that, its a wonderful door assembly.
The side panels and interior of this case are rather interesting, and proves they have listened to the typical gripe from builders, its too cramped. Well, they solved this issue. Both left and right side panels fold down, almost like wings, and give you full access to the motherboard tray, outside of the case. If you wanted to go further, the tray itself will unscrew from the side panel, making a builder\'s life much easier. The left side panel on this case uses a dark tinted acrylic panel, and this is the first time I\'ve seen it used. Once you fold down the left panel you instantly notice the support/fan bar This bar houses the 80mm fan over the PCI slots, and even has a ratcheting hold down for your big video cards. This bar swings out and will easily remove by pushing up once unlatched.
Inside you realize there is a lot of room here, and should accommodate some of the larger video cards with no issues. At the very bottom of this case, there is a red tray that slides out, and has all of your necessary hardware for drive installs. Its great for holding extra screws. Above that you have the hard drive rack that holds up to 4 hard drives and has a very unique rotating slide out mechanism to remove the rack. Above that is the 3.5 drive bays. There is one hidden 3.5 hard drive bay here as well. All the 3.5 and 5.25 drives have a quick release system, but if you don\'t like that, and prefer permanent install via screws, you can do that as well.
Overall this is a very well built case, and should be able to cool anything you put in it. There is ample room for drives of all sizes, and this case looks great.
I would like to take this chance to thank Sigma for letting me review this wonderful case, and I look forward to reviewing more of their products in the future.
hahahaha as gay as that "could" be, it would still be a dope mod. well at least the unicorns horn lol you could use it as like a wireless ant or and on off LEVER hahahahahaha
seriously dope case though, cant wait to order the phantom 10/24/8
**safety note**
try not to think of the price of the part your cutting in half.
i was looking at a server / mini atx on newegg like 165 or so had 10 sata ports.... lga 775
hold on i get a link
oh well i cant find it must be out of stock already
**safety note**
try not to think of the price of the part your cutting in half.
dude when i saw 10 sata ports i just started laughing. it stinks that i cant find it...im sure youd want it. it was itty bitty, i swear the processor would look gigantic without even a heatsink.i think it came with 2 pci slots, onboard vga and onboard dvi, 4gs through 2 slots i think the standard was 1066. if i can find the build slip i printed, maybe i can try to find it somewhere else, but i dont even remember the manu lol
good luck seems like a fun lil project =]
**safety note**
try not to think of the price of the part your cutting in half.
that would be perfect. I would likely put something like a 2ghz Pentium D in it or something! XD It would make the perfect Smoothwall with built in NAS if it was possible. I would have to relearn Linux as well as Smoothwall to do it, but it would be so worth it with that board!
lol I always imagined those shuttle cases as the perfect prop for that stuff. Man i've always wanted those shuttle cases for a number or projects, their size makes them look like great candidates for a ton of projects, nas box, htpc, even gaming rig. haha I know I'd rather lug that one around than my full size server box.
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
reason i want a cd-tower for something like this, is because I can fit a small motherboard in it, as well as about 6-8 hard drives. I want to build a NAS/smoothwall/Wifi point box, but the NAS needs to be able to store around 3-6tb at least. I would like 10tb, but I dont have $1,200 to blow on just hard drives XD
