Hands-On: VidaBox CubeCase Small Form Factor Server Chassis Review

Over the past years the Home Theatre PC has become a staple of the living room entertainment system. VidaBox is a New York based company that has made a name for themselves in the HTPC market by providing comprehensive Digital Entertainment & Control solutions for every nook and cranny in your home. VidaBox manufacture complete fully-featured home theatre turnkey solutions, ultra high-end media center rigs, home automation controls for lighting, climate, security, blinds and even automation bits for Jacuzzis.

Steven from VidaBox contacted us a couple of weeks ago about a new case they are working on and claimed this case to be “perfect for home server builds”. We’ve come to expect great things from VidaBox and jumped at the opportunity with great excitement, after all, we are still searching for the ultimate DIY Windows Home Server “Vail” and “Aurora” case – could this be it?

Well, we’ll just see about that.

About VidaBox

VidaBox LLC is a privately held manufacturer headquartered Garden City Park, New York, USA. Founded in 2005, VidaBox has a history of creating innovative and award-winning products, such as the world’s first production hybrid Blu-ray and HD DVD player in October 2006 with the LUX™ and MAX™ systems. The company’s primary focus started with custom-made, Windows-based media centers, but their product lines quickly branched out as demand for even more fully-featured solutions rapidly grew.

Today, VidaBox produces a variety of digital entertainment and control systems such as media centers, audio servers, home automation platforms, as well as complete, turn-key solutions. Their wide range of products include support for multi-room AV distribution of Blu-ray, DVDs, music, pictures, video, TV, and other digital content.

What We Do
The core of most VidaBox solutions start with the server, which securely & centrally store digital media. Combined with unique features such as 1-step “disc drop” archiving, VidaBox systems have set a new standard of convenience, uptime, and reliability unmatched by conventional systems. When used with VidaBox extenders, full 1080p, high-definition video and lossless sound is easily delivered onto any television and sound system in the home.

In addition to multi-room video distribution, VidaBox also manufactures whole house audio servers that work with popular brands such as ADA®, NuVo®, and Russound® – providing a complete AV solution.

When these multizone AV systems are combined with the vAutomation platform, features such as lighting, security, climate, and other “smart home” features can be tightly integrated on customizable, touch panel interface – providing a world-class automation & control system.

CubeCase

The CubeCase is a stylish Mini-ITX chassis for DIY home server or media center projects.

Specifications

Package and Contents

Our demo unit arrived well packaged in a VidaBox branded box and contained the following items:

• (1) Cubecase Chassis w. front mounted plastic cover/bezel
• (2) Field-Servicable HDD cages
• (1) USA Power Cable for PSU
• (1) Pre-installed 300W SFX PSU
• (1) Accessories bag with screws and zip-ties

First Impressions

At first glance I was very impressed with the chassis as it looked posh, felt very solid and the brushed aluminum top and side panels were quite attractive.  The front face of the case, in the center there is metal mesh for the 120mm front cooling fan, surrounded by a plastic finish. Right-away I pressed my fingers onto this semi-shiny tinted plastic door to conduct what I like to call “the finger-print test”  — not bad!

Opening the front bezel reveals two field serviceable bays (removable hard disk trays). The CubeCase supports up two three internal hard drives, but only two are hot-swap removable. The empty slot on top is indented for an 5.25” full-size optical drive such as a DVDROM. This is great because the full-size disc drives are faster than their slim line counterparts, as a result you will be able to install a full sized Blu-ray drive or just install Windows Home Server at blazing speeds. The power LED is blue and the HDD activity is the traditional red.

The 120mm fan takes in air from the front of the case to provide direct cooling of the two main field-serviceable storage bays. A second fan measuring 80mm is located in the rear of the case which pulls out the hot air to provide a healthy airflow through the case.

The left and right side panels each contains a little mesh for additional air cooling.

	A clever and clean design feature is that the power button, dual USB 2.0 ports and Audio I/O ports are on the left hand side of the chassis.
	Looking at the rear of the chassis, there is a ventilation mesh for the rear 80 mm exhaust fan (included) and tiny ventilation holes for the 300W SFX power supply.The PSU has the standard 115V-230V voltage switch for international use.  The motherboard I/O shield is not included.
	With noise such an important factor for a home server, the 300W SFX power supply with a tiny integrated fan is perfect for such a project.
	The power supplies main power feed to the motherboard has the 20+4 pin ATX power cable.Most motherboards require either a 20 pin main power connector or a 24 pin main power connector. This 20+4 cable is compatible with both. If you leave the two pieces separate (the yellow from the gray) then you can plug the 20 pin piece into a 20 pin motherboard and leave the four pin piece unplugged

Building a Home Server

Building any computer from the ground up can be a lot of fun and generally speaking there are great benefits to building your own rig rather than buying an OEM solution. Over the past years I have spent countless hours researching hardware components, reading reviews and asking questions in the forums.
Choosing the right components largely depends on the kind of Home Server you need, for example a “basic setup to just backup-up PCs on your network” might just be all that is needed or a more “powerful server to take advantage of upcoming features in Windows Home Server Vail, such as “media streaming and transcoding”. Other consideration may include the carbon footprint and “power consumption,” keeping in mind that a typical home server operates 24/7.

Before we get carried away, the purpose of this article is to review the VidaBox CubeCase chassis, we will have a lot of fun with the above at a later date.

CubeCase Installation Instructions

	The first step is to untighten the two screws on the rear to remove both of the side panels.
	Next, we need to remove the screw (A) and carefully slide out the internal hard disk tray. Install the new system HDD into the tray and set it aside for now.
	Install the motherboard I/O shield, and then slide in the motherboard. Carefully tighten the four screws with a small screwdriver.
	Connect the wires leading to the motherboard, ATX power, USB, HD Audio, front LEDs etc. Then re-install the HDD tray removed from step 2 back into the chassis.
	Attach the SATA data and power cables to the internal HDD.
	Dismount the power supply unit (PSU) and pull it out about 1 inch, which will give clearance for the (2) external HDD SATA connections to connect.
	Install the optical drive (CD/DVD) by sliding it in from the front. Pull out the PSU if needed to connect the SATA and power connections to the optical drive.
	Check that everything is connected and that all necessary screws are mounted and tightened, then re-place the aluminum side panels.

Hardware Specifications for Test Setup #1

Unfortunately our processor heat-sink was too tall and did not fit into the CubeCase chassis. We expect it to be a tight fit, but did not notice any documentation or information on the maximum processor heat-sink clearance level. The solution in our case was to get a low-rise CPU heat-sink. Note that a lot of the new Intel Atom Mini ITX motherboards have the processor and heat-sink embedded onto the motherboard.

Hardware Specifications for Test Setup #2

As you can see from the image below, the Intel Desktop Board with integrated Intel Atom D510 processor with heat-sink fits comfortably in the CubeCase chassis.

Conclusion

Aesthetically, we are very pleased with this case as the quality of the aluminum and overall craftsmanship is excellent. At first we found the side-facing USB, audio ports, and power button a bit out of place, but after using it for a couple of weeks having the power and auxiliary inputs on the side of the case does make for a cleaner front bezel.

The VidaBox CubeCase with its 3 hard drive bays makes an excellent home server and would do equally well as Media Center HTPC chassis,  simply throw in a Ceton TV tuner card into the free expansion slot. The CubeCase comes with three fans which coupled with the case ventilation intakes, provide a lot of cooling, but it does generate some minor fan noise.

The VidaBox CubeCase carries an MSRP of $99 and is available now from VidaBox – considering that the case includes a 300W SFX PSU and is built solid, which is pretty good value for the money.