Introduction

For some enthusiasts, it seems like there's an almost insatiable need for more storage space. With the advent of super-detailed games, high-quality music, high-definition video and more, needs for kilobytes or megabytes have quickly given way to needs of gigabytes. If the media can just be archived, there are a few good solutions available now and even better emerging technologies like Blu-Ray on the horizon. However, for practical everyday use, nothing really beats a hard disk drive - especially twelve of them.

Enter the home-server case. Massive server tower cases are nothing new, but considering these types of machines have traditionally been strictly for commercial use manufacturers have never cared much about the cases' appearances. Now that home users are interested in storing such large quantities of data, it only makes sense that case builders are starting to pay more attention to aesthetics and usability in their server cases.

While we've looked at several cases in the past year or so that are capable of holding many drives, there are other features of a case that make it truly fit to hold a server. The most important features are that it can comfortably handle extended motherboards - as a lot of the professional dual-processor boards are extended length - and longer expansion cards as well. Beyond that, ample cooling and expansion options must be present, and if there's an option to hold a secondary power supply that's a bonus as well.

Lian Li, well known for their quality, all aluminum cases, took a stab at this genre a couple years ago with the PC-V2000, which essentially is a bulkier version of the PC-V1000 reviewed in our roundup of several tower cases. The V2000 gets a lot about this type of case just right, and the design overall will please many people just as its smaller sibling's did. Presently Lian Li also offers several newer cases designed for the same market, and we'll take a look at how one of their latest, the PC-201B compares to the V2000.

More information can be found on the Lian Li website. Also, thanks to Directron for the PC-V2000 unit.

PC-V2000 - Exterior

Our particular PC-V2000 model came in black, and included a side panel window for a more enthusiast-oriented look. Much like the PC-V1000, the case resembles the Mac G5 case with the perforated front and uncluttered bottom half, but the V2000 offers seven externally accessible drive bays, one of which is primed for stealthy optical drive concealing, and another which is fitted with a 5.25" to 3.5" adapter and floppy drive cover.

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As cool as it is to expose the components of a PC, we really have to criticize Lian Li for limiting the view into the V2000 so much by only having the window extend half-way down the case. While certainly there will be some builds in this case where having the bottom hidden makes more sense, for the majority of users, showing off the hard drive array or the redundant power supplies would be some of the main high points of a windowed server case we think.

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Getting back to the front of the case, here one can see the large ventilation area for intake at the bottom, and the case's focus on a large number of 5.25" bays.

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There is no reset button on the PC-V2000, just a good-sized aluminum power button and blue and red LEDs underneath for power and HDD activity status.

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At the very bottom you'll find the port cluster and Lian Li's trademark above. The two USB ports aren't stacked on top of each other, so clearance issues shouldn't arise unless one has a really wide thumb drive. The Lian Li logo looks great, and fits in with the rest of the look of the case just fine.

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The wheels of the PC-V2000 are included and attached already, and unlike normal casters they're axle-based. The front set doesn't have anything special really, but the rear set does have a locking mechanism to prevent the case from rolling around. Optional rubber sleeves are included too to assist with traction on smooth surfaces.

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From the rear, the PC-V2000 resembles the PC-V1000 very closely yet again, with the only real difference being the additional height under the motherboard section, which allows a user to put in additional fans for cooling the hard drive section, or put a different plate altogether and house dual power supplies. Note the reversed orientation of the ATX motherboard - this design is to help keep the warmest parts of the case closer together and also helps with routing power cords from the low-placed power supply to the motherboard.

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One final shot of just the exterior of the case, and here we can see the typical Lian Li quality aluminum finish and edge work, along with the easy-to-use thumbscrew locking system this series of cases uses to hold the side panels in place.

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PC-V2000 - Interior

Both the V1000 and V2000 allow you to open up both sides of the case with identical ease for very unrestricted access to the internals.

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With the reversed motherboard orientation, the main side for getting at internals is the right side of the case. Right away we can recognize typical server-style design choices. Perhaps the most prominent is the expansion card support bar, which of course is removable.

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After removing the few screws holding it in place, the bar slides easily out. There are two main sections to the inside of the V2000: the upper portion for the motherboard, expansion cards, and 5.25" drives; and the lower portion for the hard drives and power supply. Large cutouts sit between the various areas for cable management.

Here's the support bar from the other side. The plastic clips can individually swing into place to help hold the far end of longer expansion cards firmly in place during transport.

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The rear of the case pretty much offers everything expected from seeing it from the outside. A 120mm fan takes on the bulk of the cooling duty, pulling air through the ventilated front top part of the case, and the bottom portion relies on the power supply and the 120mm fan mounted in the front, unless a user installs additional 80mm fans over the two grills. Extra holes are punched in the visible plate in the above picture, most likely to keep airflow restrictions and overall weight as low as possible.

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Turning our attention back to the front, one can get a better sense of how these hard drive holders actually work. Four special screws go into each drive and serve as 'pegs' for the drive to slide along these plastic rails. Once slid into place horizontally, two plastic clips slide down vertically behind the peg to hold the drive in all the way. It's easy and secure, and doesn't take very long either.

Also notice how in this picture air is discouraged from leaking around the fan from the backside - the fan shroud keeps entry air coming primarily through the front bezel. The fan can be pulled out to clean it and the filter as well.

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Overall, the horizontal slide-in hard drive design works very well, and there's enough space between drives for adequate airflow even if the case is completely filled. It takes a lot of cabling to connect 12 hard drives, but thankfully Lian Li has already planned for the potentially extreme cabling accommodation needs.

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The large cutout is big enough for several IDE cables of course, but more importantly it's big enough to make the actual act of routing cables through it painless. The smaller cutout is for the motherboard power connector, and is just big enough to pass that through.

PC-V2000 - Interior Cont'd

We mentioned the usefulness of the configurable rear plate, specifically with regards to swapping it out for one that can handle dual power supplies, but here's another example of when it could come in handy.

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With the plate turned like this, this particular power supply's main intake fan would be rendered useless, but the plate can be turned 180 degrees so the fan is aimed downward at the perforated support plate underneath. We were actually hoping the plate could be flipped front-for-back as well, but it turns out this is not possible. Another potential use for this space includes water cooling gear, as there are several dual 80mm radiators that would fit this plate nicely.

Moving up the backside, one can see the same large thumbscrews are used to hold in expansion cards that Lian Li uses in most of their cases. To the right of the slots is enough room to mount one of the vertical blower style fans Lian Li sells as an optional accessory.

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Now focusing on the front, it's easy to see that not everything in the PC-V2000 is designed around being tool-less - the 5.25" drive bays use the standard four screws. With the easy opening of both side panels though, this is hardly a significant complaint.

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The very bottom bay is already fitted with an adapter to hold and stealthily conceal a floppy drive of any color, and the very top bay is ready to conceal an optical drive. This leaves plenty of options for users wanting to build a disc duplicator box, a server with even more of these bays populated with hard drives, or just a very full computer with fan controllers, water reservoirs, and other accessories that fit in 5.25" bays.

To really get a feel how the case would handle installed components, we put together components that could roughly emulate a home server system. Starting off with a full sized ATX motherboard and standard ATX power supply, here's how the PC-V2000 looked.

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Notice how in this configuration, there's absolutely no problem with reaching the motherboard from the power supply, and thanks to the upside down mounting one would have to have a particularly short cord and bad placement of the power connector on the motherboard for reach to be an issue.

The main 120mm fan exhaust will do fine with keeping the system cool enough for the most part, but users should be careful about installing too many hot components near the top without getting a blower fan to get rid of the excess heat that would collect at the top back.

We put a collection of hard drives in the PC-V2000 to test the ability to manage the excess cables and it did fine; however, one could find the area pretty tight if all twelve bays were used and airflow could begin to suffer.

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The biggest problem though is simply the reach required for the hard drives. With IDE controller cards, we found 18" cables to be practically useless in the PC-V2000. Be prepared to get 24" IDE cables if you'd like to use them, or 12-24" SATA cables depending on whether or not you'll be using controller cards or on-board connectors.

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Now, with a different motherboard, power supply, and 24" IDE cables, the mock server build was complete. Even with an extended ATX motherboard and extended expansion cards, the PC-V2000 would handle extra cabling - even water cooling too - very well.

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PC-201B - Exterior

Our look at the newer PC-201B isn't going to be quite as extensive as our look at the PC-V2000, mainly because the two cases are so similar on the inside. However, the exterior is markedly different, as we'll see in the next couple pictures.

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Diverging from the rounded corners of the PC-V series, the PC-201 is exceptionally box-like, hinting more towards the classic Lian Li cases. The front is a one-piece door, accented by the only color differences on the case along the top, bottom, and right side and a newer, cursive Lian Li insignia.

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It's certainly more monolithic than the PC-V2000, but whether or not that's the look you're going for is something you'll have to decide before picking one of these two cases over the other.

Behind the door you'll find the same total number of 5.25" bays, but none are ready for a floppy drive. However, as time goes on, the usefulness of a floppy is slowly fading away and this probably won't concern too many people. For those who really need the external 3.5" bay, several e-tailers are selling the PC-201 with an included bay adapter.

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Along the right edge about half-way up is the slot for the lock for the door. The front ports have moved from the very bottom to the very top, which is a good move considering the majority of people using this case won't likely put it anywhere up high anyway.

Just like the PC-V2000B, the PC-201B has a very high quality brushed aluminum black finish that doesn't show fingerprints or scratches too easily.

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The inside bezel is arguably even more void of decoration than the outside - here looking at the bottom you'll only find the power and reset buttons, which are actually mostly translucent becase the power button glows blue indicating the computer is on, and the reset button glows red with HDD activity. The large grill is the only ventilation for air coming into the front of the case, which helps with keeping the case as free of dust as possible.

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The door itself has a very solid feel to it, with no real worries of how well it will stay shut thanks to the well-made latch. The spring-loaded ball doesn't make it too difficult to close the door but doesn't leave the closed position feeling flimsy either. It's also nice that Lian Li included a soft strip the whole length of the door to dampen any vibrations and keep the sound of the door closing from being too harsh.

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Looking at the rear of the case it's even easier to see just how boxy the PC-201 really is. Other than the lack of rounded corners though, the differences between the PC-V2000 and this case are so minuscule they're not even noticeable, except for the fact that the rear 120mm fan in this case is now an intake by default. (It is of course possible to orient the fans in either direction, should you choose to do so. However, we're inclined to stick with the default orientation that Lian Li chose.)

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PC-201B - Interior

The inside of the PC-201 is laid out extremely similarly to the PC-V2000, just like the rear of the case.

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Just like the V2000, the front intake fan can be taken out with a couple thumbscrews, and then the fan and filter can be cleaned easily. There's also vibration dampening material to help keep the fan quiet. Quite possibly the largest difference though is simply the addition of a couple more cooling accessories.

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In addition to the shroud for the main rear 120mm fan and the side-aimed 120mm exhaust fan at the top, there is also another additional 120mm fan in the bottom portion of the case. This fan a good idea because it keeps the air that has been warmed up by passing over the hard drives moving out the back of the case instead of collecting in front of this plate or going through the cable slots and rising into the upper area of the case.

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The included shroud is just like the one in the V series; it can be adjusted to control just how much the rear fan exclusively aims air at the CPU area. Note that in the V series, this 120mm fan is an exhaust, but as noted earlier it has been flipped to be an intake here. The extra upper exhaust fan's mounting mechanism attaches to the rear of the case like the blower fans Lian Li included with the V series, using a soft piece of rubber in the process to absorb extra vibrations, but we prefer this mounting as it allows the user to fine-tune the positioning of the fan front-to-back. The range of motion can be seen from the outside of the case as the grill is large enough for about an inch of movement in either direction.


Overall the combination of an intake positioned right around the CPU and an exhaust higher up above the expansion cards should do a much better job of eliminating pockets of hot, dead air around the motherboard area. However, the very front of the upper area won't be getting much (if any) circulation at all in this scheme, so putting hard drives in the 5.25" bay area isn't as ideal in the V2000.

Once the shroud and extra fan are out, the interior looks even more familiar. The lower portion is laid out in the same manner, and the same rails are used to secure the hard drives. The 5.25" drive bays are the same too, as are the expansion card holders (still tool-less thumbscrews). Even the convertible rear plate and latches for the removable side panels are carried over identically.

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The PC-201B can hold all the same motherboards as the PC-V2000, which basically includes every type out there, and the amount of space to work with is pretty much identical as well. The cutouts for routing cables are the same size, too.

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The bottom of the PC-201B is an area that's actually changed quite a bit since the V series. Instead of axle wheels, or any wheels at all for that matter, the case simply has four rubber-lined feet.

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If anything, the wheels of the V series were slightly better than simple feet in our opinion, since they did allow you to easily move the case if needed, could be locked otherwise, and could either be bare metal or surrounded with rubber depending on if the case would reside on carpet or a hard surface. Luckily, the option for adding casters is still available.

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In addition to the included fans, the PC-201B comes with all the special screws needed to mount the maximum of 12 hard drives, along with a stand-off plate for Xeon CPUs. It also includes plenty of screws for motherboard and drive fastening, two keys for the lockable front door, a couple zip-ties and mountable clips for cable management, and a small screwdriver for turning those pesky standoffs and standard hex case screws.

Final Words

It's nice to see manufacturers realizing what's good about a product and merely improving upon it without getting rid of the qualities that made the original such a good design. Lian Li should be commended on this approach, as even now the PC-V2000 is an excellent choice for anyone in the market for a large tower case.

The PC-V2000 retails for around $235, and the PC-201B for about $40 more. Really, both cases offer very similar performance and features for people wanting to build a larger system. The extra $40 will get you better overall cooling, especially for the lower hard drives and expansion cards, along with more modern styling and a door to conceal and protect the external drives.

Plenty of people really don't care for doors though, and in our own testing the PC-V2000 kept the eight hard drives right around a 42 degrees Celsius average, while the PC-201B managed an average of 38 degrees Celcius - which are both certainly healthy temperatures for hard drives. The noise levels of both cases were surprisingly similar, and the PC-V2000 subjectively scored a 3.0/10 (with 0 being absolutely silent - the best) in our tests while the extra two fans in the PC-201 brought it's score up only marginally, to 3.5/10. Bearing all this in mind, we really only see a few situations where one would want to splurge for the PC-201.

The main reason of course would simply be if you really want the door or more modern styling. Ultimately, aesthetics tends to matter the most to people when looking at this type of case, and for good reason - no one wants to spend over $200 for a case that they find ugly. If you have a preference in looks between these two cases, you should simply get the one you like more.

Another reason to go with the PC-201 would be if the server was going to be running in an area that could potentially be quite warm, and proper cooling was of the utmost importance. That being said, a case this nice looking probably isn't going to be placed in a dark hot closet anyway, so this situation does seem rather contrived.

Ultimately, these are both great choices if you need tons of storage or simply want something a little larger than average. They'd both handle even rather elaborate water cooling setups easily, and with window kits available can even make nice boxes as a base for building a super-sleek monolithic gaming rig. The build quality, the ease-of-use, and quality of materials is all first-rate. Other cases in this price-range rarely offer the same number of available internal 3.5" drive bays, but even so the Thermaltake Tai Chi and Cooler Master Stacker line, along with Silverstone's TJ07 are good competing cases to check out as well. Congratulations to Lian Li are in order for more fine examples of good PC case engineering.