Rosewill RSV-L4000: A Nice, Sub-$100 EATX Server Chassis

With the transformation of a basement into a large Linux server room (50+ computers), I previously wrote about the sub-$50 4U ATX server case and 2U micro-ATX server case commonly used for housing the many Linux systems in this lab running continuous performance benchmarks. For the EATX systems, here's the server chassis I've gone with and experienced great results out of this EATX/SSI rackmount chassis that can be found online for as little as $80 USD.

The EATX chassis I'm currently using for the larger motherboards is the Rosewill RSV-L4000. This case was recommended by a Phoronix reader and can be found for just $80 USD at Amazon (with free shipping) while other Internet retailers put the price at $90~100.

Besides handling up to 12 x 13 inch EATX/SSI motherboards, the RSV-L4000 from Rosewill can handle eight 3.5-inch drives and three 5.25-inch devices (or three more 3.5-inch drives with adapter). There's also five 120mm intake fans and two 80mm cooling fans for exhaust -- all fans are included with the case though they're the stock, lower-end, 4-pin fans. A basic fan filter is built into the front panel door to help down on dust intake.

Like most server cases there's a lock on the front panel and USB 2.0 connections on the front panel. This 4U server chassis measures in at 25 x 16.8 x 7.0 inches and has a gross weight of 39.8 lbs. The rackmount case is constructed out of 1.0mm steel.

After following the Phoronix reader's recommendation for this case and seeing other customer reviews on Amazon, et al, I now have three of these Rosewill RSV-L1000 running in our test farm and haven't encountered any serious issues with these cases after having been running with them for a few weeks. Of course, it would be nice if they included rails, but that's next to impossible to find with any low-cost rackmount enclosure. I also haven't been able to find a better EATX rackmount chassis for less than $100 USD, so until I'm able to do so, when adding more systems to our Linux performance benchmarking farm, I'll continue purchasing the RSV-L1000 for my EATX system needs. If you're interested in the case, check it out on Amazon.com where I've been ordering them from and is lower-cost than any other major US Internet retailer, plus using our shopping link goes to support Phoronix. Hopefully this short write-up was of interest to anyone else looking to do a low-cost EATX Linux server build, as always, questions can be directed to the forums or Twitter.