SilverStone CS382 Micro-ATX NAS Chassis Review

For those of you who have build computers before, the process of building a NAS is no different, with a few minor changes.  There is very little need for using “enterprise” grade components except for the storage controller and to get the most from your NAS you will want something that supports hardware based RAID.  RAID is the process of linking drives together for speed and redundancy and is absolutely required for hot-swapping drives. 

For instance, if a drive fails, then another drive in the RAID array will keep the system running and provide a window for you to replace the drive.  Once the new drive has been installed, the controller card will begin rebuilding the RAID array.

SilverStone offers several RAID cards and some notable products are listed below

• ECS04: a low profile RAID card supporting up to 8x SAS/SATA drives and RAID levels of 0,1,10
• ECS05: basically an upgraded version of the ECS04 supporting faster SAS drives and still limited to RAID levels of 0,1,10
• ECS01: this is a true hardware RAID card with onboard cache memory for better performance supporting up to 8x SAS/SATA drives and RAID levels of 0,1,5,6,10,50,60

Any of these cards are suitable for use with the SilverStone CS382 and the eight hot-swap SAS and SATA drives.

Over the many years running and building servers I know that you can build a server in anything, the trick is making sure you have the correct configuration to support what you need to do.  Most servers are designed to be a data storage repository and the dual hot-swap bays will ensure that you can build and maintain a storage network without impacting any of the other services.

The SilverStone CS382 supports a massive amount of cooling for a NAS chassis including dual 140mm cooling fans at the top of the chassis.  The case comes with a single 120mm cooling fan at the rear and two 92mm fans for cooling the hot-swap bays.  We all know that modern CPU can run quite hot however, in a NAS the loads are rarely sustained and this extra cooling simply ensures that the build will remain cool while also keeping noise to a minimum.

While this might be an edge case, the CS382 also has enough cooling available for those looking to experiment with AI processing using a single GPU up to 369mm in length.  Adding a GPU to your server solution opens up support for any number of AI LLM Frameworks.

Overall, I am really impressed with the CS382 from SilverStone, not only is the chassis extremely stylish but supports all of the major components needed to build a quality NAS.

Personally, I would have liked the hot-swap trays to be the latching type with a metal frame.  Those trays offer a positive engagement latch to ensure the drives are properly installed and look nicer.  Also as a bit of a nitpick, the gauge of metal used to construct the CS382 is quite thin resembling a low cost gaming chassis over what I would expect from a purpose built NAS/Server chassis.

All things considered, the SilverStone CS382 is a perfect Min/Max providing users with more storage options and better cooling over the features that ultimately drive up costs.

Compact Chassis Design
Eight Hot-Swap Drives
SAS/SATA support
Excellent Cooling
Stylish Design
Physical Security Available

Security limited to front door only
Hot-swap trays are plastic
Metal used is quite thin