Chenbro is one of the top enclosure makers, and for years we have been testing their cases. As the Opteron's popularity continues to rise we decided it was time to test rackmounts that were well suited for a dual config. Chenbro answered the call and provided us with their RM215 2U rackmount. It can come in a variety of configurations and ours came prepared for the dual Opteron MSI server board with a SATA backplane. Here are the features and specs of the RM215 per Chenbro.

Features

Specifications

Here's a 3/4 view of the RM215. You can see the solid metal top with two release buttons. Also of note are the 8 drive bays so the RM215 can handle 8 SATA drives!

A closer shot reveals status LEDs for all eight possible drives. To the right of it are two USB ports with power, reset, and status and activity LEDs to their right.

A shot of the back reveals the half height PCI brackets as well as the spot for the power supply, and the motherboard IO port bracket.

Here is a closer shot at one of the rubber covered case buttons. Simply pressing down on both allows you to slide the top case cover off.

With the top removed you see there is plenty of real estate inside the Chenbro. Yes you can easily fit an extended ATX motherboard like the MSI dual Opteron board we are using. You can also see the drive bay area which is separated by four high powered fans from the motherboard and power supply.

Flipping the top cover over reveals a quick start guide. This way you don't lose it. It shows most of the important items you will need when setting up the case.

Chenbro sent the RM215 equipped with the Emacs 460 watt power supply. It comes with a 24 pin ATX power connector that the Opteron board requires, and has more than enough power to handle that and the 4 Western Digital Raptors we tested the case with.

Here is a shot of the entire power supply before we mounted it in the case.

The hard drive bays are removable and support hot swapping. You slide the connector to the left and the front plate will swing out so the entire drive can be removed.

With the entire drive cage removed you can see it contains holes for drive ventilation.

The primary cooling for the drives is provided by these 4 high powered 80mm fans. It is optional to have two additional fans blowing out the back of the case.

Looking at them from the front reveals the fan grills. They suck hot air from the drives in and over the motherboard and out the back of the case. They can be quite loud when they are all fired up with the top of the case off.

Here's a shot of the SATA backplane. It provides power to each hard drive, and you attach the SATA cables directly to it, and not the actual hard drives. It worked perfectly in our testing with the Raptors.

Here we have everything installed into the case including 1GB of Corsair memory, the MSI dual Opteron motherboard, 4 Western Digital Raptors, Opteron 248s, and the Rocket RAID 1820A. We tested out the rackmount in this configuration at our colo and had no issues with stability at all. We were expecting this from Chenbro as we have had one of their 2U rackmounts handling a dual Athlon configuration for a few years.

Overall we found the Chenbro to be a fine case if you are looking for a 2U rackmount for your Opteron server. It is constructed sturdily, it kept the system cooled, and it has plenty of features like a SATA backplane and half height PCI slots. You can even customize the RM215 for SCSI, IDE, and full lengh PCI cards. Chenbro offers plenty of options.

We would like the to thank Chenbro for the opportunity to test this case, and we certainly recommend it fully.

Score: 90