Review of the Fractal Design Array R2 Mini-ITX Case

Back in January at CES, I met up with Fractal Design to talk about some of the cases, including the Array R2 Mini-ITX case. Well now it is time for our review of it.

The Array R2 Case

Here is how Fractal Design describe the Array R2:

The Array R2 Mini ITX NAS case is setting new standards for the Home Server/DIY NAS market. With it’s whopping six(!) hard drive bays in a very small enclosure, hardly bigger than your average bread toaster, it’s certainly creating a new niche.

Built in high quality aluminium straight through with a nice touch for details, the Array R2 case provides a very exclusive way to store all your important data. The hard drive cage with room for six 3,5-inch HDD and one SSD, is removable and fitted with silicone anti-vibration grommets to minimise noise from the hard drives. In the front our award winning Silent Series 140mm is fitted, together with a washable filter. It takes in air from the side ventilation holes in the front panel. This ensures an efficient, but yet silent, cooling over the hard drives.

Furthermore, there is a SFX 300W PSU included, rated at more than 80% efficiency, with a silent temperature controlled fan. We have decided to include this PSU in the package, since it’s fairly hard to find quality SFX PSU’s in the market that is also silent, and not too expensive.

You can fit a Mini ITX or a Mini DTX motherboard into the case and there’s also room for two expansion cards, for example a RAID card which you’d typically want to get the most out of your six hard drives. All necessary components and software naturally needs to be purchased separately, but we can recommend to use specialised NAS/Home Server software such as FreeNAS or Windows Home Server. Please note that there is no room for a 5,25-inch drive, we deliberately left this out since you don’t generally use that in a NAS/Home Server environment, and it saved us a lot of space which we could use for fitting hard drives instead.

Who Are Fractal Design?

This is how Fractal Design describe themselves:

The concept – Design

The concept of Fractal Design is to provide products with an extraordinary design level, without compromising the important factors of quality, functionality and pricing. The computer of today has come to play a central role in most people’s home, creating a demand for appealing design of the computer itself and its accessories.
Our main product areas are computer enclosures, power supplies, cooling, and Media Center-products, such as Home Theatre-enclosures, keyboards and remote controls.

Designed and engineered in Sweden

All Fractal Design products have been thoroughly designed, tested and specified in our Swedish head quarter. The well known ideas of Scandinavian design can be found through all of our products; a minimalistic but yet striking design – less is more.

Visions and goals

Our vision is to have a constant, healthy growth together with our partners worldwide. Our goal is to be widely recognized for our designed products and to have them available in all major market regions within EU and US. We should be a good alternative to the already established retail brands of today. It’s of great importance for us that our partners understand the values of Fractal Design, therefore we are putting great effort into choosing the right partners from the start. We will work actively to maintain sales territories and profitable business for our partners.

The way to reach our goals

In the competitive market of today, it’s not enough to just provide excellent products. Regular and well planned marketing activities in close cooperation with the channel and the available media, are key points to succeed. We are well experienced in marketing brands in the IT business, and we will use this to create efficient marketing tools – to gain a bigger market share and good earning possibilities for our channel.

Specifications

Case Specifications

• Built in high quality aluminium
• Silent, efficient 300W SFX PSU included
• Room for six silicone mounted 3,5-inch HDD
• Room for one SSD
• Removable HDD cage for easy mounting
• Silent Series 140mm fan included in front, with washable filter
• Space available for CPU cooler: circa 90mm height
• Space available for expansion card: circa 140mm length
• Fits Mini ITX and Mini DTX motherboards
• Two expansion slots
• Case dimensions (WxHxD): 250x200x350mm
• Net weight: 4.1kg

PSU Specifications

• 80 PLUS rated SFX 300W PSU
• Silent, temperature controlled fan
• 7x SATA-connectors, 1x Molex, 1x 4-pin and 1x 20/24pin
• Meets CE, TUV safety requirementsDC Output
  Max load
  Max output+3.3V
  20A
  125W (combined +3.3V and +5V) 

  +5V
  22A
  125W (combined +3.3V and +5V)

  +12V1
  14A
  216W combined 12V1 and 12V2

  +12V2
  16A
  216W combined 12V1 and 12V2

  -12V
  0.5A
  6W

  +5VSB
  2.5A
  12.5W

  Total combined power
  300W