Lian Li has announced a new Mini ITX chassis which is tailor-made for building a NAS system. The Mid-tower sized PC-Q26 chassis is hewn from Lian Li's favourite material, brushed aluminium, available in silver or black finishes. Its standout feature is that it is capable of accommodating up to ten 3.5-inch drives, as well as a single 2.5-inch drive, within its 32.3L capacity.
The PC-Q26 chassis can fit a vast amount of storage within its (W)200mm x (H)395mm x (D)410mm frame. It is built so that users can fit up to 11 hard drives (10 x 3.5-inch plus a single 2.5-inch drive). Furthermore, by default, two of the 3.5-inchers are removable via a 'hot swap' backplane system for data backup, security or other purposes. Extra backplanes can be added, says Lian Li.
For all its capaciousness the PC-Q26 is said to be "small and lightweight" (4.6Kg net). Getting drives in and out of the system is said to be a cinch with the aforementioned hot swap drives joined by others which are all simply thumb-screw and rubber suspension system cradled. The chassis itself also has easy "pop off" side panels.
To keep everything running cool Lian Li has installed three front 120mm fans and a top 120mm exhaust fan near the back of the case. Ventilation at the back and rear is not too much to remove the positive air pressure in the chassis. Also keeping dust ingress to a minimum, magnetically fixed air filters are present over the air inlets.
Looking at maximum hardware compatibility the Lian Li PC-Q26 chassis supports expansion cards up to 190mm long and coolers up to 150mm tall. Power supplies can be as long as 190mm. Rounding off the chassis features, the front panel I/O on offer includes a couple of handy USB 3.0 ports and HD Audio sockets.
Lian Li wrote to HEXUS to say that this new Mini ITX chassis is available right now in the UK at a suggested retail price of £119.
- Model: PC-Q26 A/B
- Case Type: Mini Tower Chassis
- Dimensions: (W)200mm, (H)395mm, (D)410mm
- Colour: Black, Silver
- Front bezel Material: Aluminium, Side Panel: Aluminium, Body Material: Aluminium
- Net Weight: 4.6kg
- 5.25" drive bay (External): None, 3.5" drive bay (External): None, HDD bay: 3.5" HDD x10 (Hot-Swap x2), 2.5" HDD x1
- Expansion Slot: 2
- Motherboard: Mini-ITX
- System Fan (Front): 120mm Fan x3, System Fan (Top): 120mm Fan x1, System Fan (Side): 120mm Fan x1(Optional), System Fan (Rear): 80mm Fan x1(Optional)
- I/O Ports: USB3.0 x 2, HD Audio
- Maximum Compatibility: VGA Card length: 190mm, PSU length: 190mm, CPU cooler height:150mm
- PSU: ATX PSU (Optional)
