Comments on: SilverStone CS381 Review a NAS and Workstation Hybrid

By: Daniel Munn

Daniel Munn — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 17:34:43 +0000

At first look I thought wow; then looked closer, big disappointment.
Expensive case around $350 and you need sfx p/s which would add around another $300.
That’s approximately $650 JUST FOR A CASE.
Add the parts needed.
The big disappointment is the very very poor arir flow in this case leading to hot drives, etc.
I’ll pass on this for better designed and cheaper cases out there.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 01:22:18 +0000

Hello – had two questions on this case:

1. Would using a 240mm radiator AIO liquid cooler attached the back be preferred way of keeping both the CPU and HDDs cool? I’d like to pair a 80W TDP CPU with something like a silent Corsair H100i but want to make sure the HDDs run cool.

2. What kind of temperatures at idle and load do you get for your CPU, HDDs, RAM and GPU? I’ve heard the one knock against the CS280 / DS380 are bad temperatures and I’m hoping it doesn’t extend to the CS381. It looks like the mobo on the CS381 may not have the best air flow given there’s no mesh grill in the front and no direct fans on the lower level to keep the M.2 card, RAM or just other chips on the mobo cool.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 20 May 2020 16:49:46 +0000

I’ve been eyeing the SilverStone RM21-308, which also has the 8 hotswap bays and (apparently) a relatively short cabinet depth, but is only 2U height. Would love to see how that model compares to the CS381 with the same hardware used in this review.

By: Patrick Kennedy

Patrick Kennedy — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 16:50:54 +0000

In reply to Greg. You can power the two rear case fans from them if you do not use motherboard headers.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 14:39:38 +0000

What are the 3 pin fan headers for on the HDD backplanes? Is there a fan in each of the enclosures?

By: Luke

Luke — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 06:40:51 +0000

I’m confused at how to connect from SATA ports on a motherboard to the backplane connector? Can anyone provide help with what cables I need? I’m using a SATA pcie expansion card and and a b365m motherboard with 6 SATA connections.