Since the topic of cases has come up I thought I'd share a bit of research I've done into them. First off, I looked at the Streacom cases. They certainly appear to be very nicely made with the machining from thick aluminum and their passive cooling system. From what I can see it looks like the best choice would be the newer FC10 rather than the FC9. The FC10 is a bigger unit that is 435mm long so it is not a compact unit, but it has the ability to hold 3 - 2.5" drives and 2 - 3.5" drives as well as a slot loading optical drive if one wanted internal ripping. It can also handle a full size ATX board. This is compared to the FC9 which is stated to only hold 3 - 2.5" drives and the optical drive and is 348mm long. It becomes obvious from looking at the specs on all of their models that drive capacity is not the top of their list - pretty much all their models appear to be geared more towards the HTPC crowd rather than being designed for NAS usage. For our purposed this is somewhat of a shame as otherwise the construction quality of the cases seems superb.
However, there is one possible big downside to the Streacom units: they don't accept a standard ATX PS/2 power supply. As a matter of fact, they don't accept an internal power supply at all. In order to use any of them you also have to purchase one of their external brick type power supplies which connects to the back of the unit through an umbilical cord. That would be bad enough to start with but there is an internal cable and connector with a bit of a circuit board on it that then connects to the motherboard. To top it off the brick uses a removable power cable but not with a standard IEC connector. It instead has one of the smaller three contact connectors becoming popular on a lot of BluRay players and other compact devices. Take a look at the gallery here to get more of an idea of what I am talking about:
http://www.streacom.com/products/nano150-psu/
Interestingly in the FC10 description it says: "Power Supply: Nano150, Nano150XT, Nano180XT or StreaFlex 250 (not Included)". But the only power supply listed on their site is the Nano 150 so the others don't seem to exist. Looking at the case design it is obvious that they have eliminated the possibility of an internal power supply in favor of being able to handle two full size PCI cards which we would never need. But because of the machined aluminum design it looks like it would be hard work to modify the case for a standard ATX PS/2 power supply. In addition the cases are rather expensive at around the $450US mark for the FC10 or FC9. If it did everything we wanted it to do and gave a musical improvement it might be worth the expense and size. But with all the new variables brought up by the special power supply and the limited capacity I'd personally think it might be best to give them a pass for now.
That brings me to another case which, while not being quite as sturdy as the Streacom units, might be just what we are looking for. This would be the Lian Li PC -V354 aluminum case shown here in the black finish (also available in silver and, I believe, red):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 4AodIHoAIA
While I expect we'd want to get rid of the blue LEDs on the fans, and possibly the fans themselves, this unit otherwise appears like it might be ideal for the LS NAS. First off it can handle wither MicroATX or MiniITX motherboards (what confusing names with the Micro bing bigger than the Mini). Second, and this is a big one, it can handle 7 internal 3.5" drives and one external 5.25" drive. Third, it uses a standard ATX PS/2 power supply unit with the IEC connector available on the back panel (no extension cable). Fourth, it is reasonably compact at 9.65"W x 12.60"H x 16.54"D and 9.2 lbs. Not as compact as the Fractal Design NODE 304 but not too bad. And finally it is made out of aluminum with the sides held on by a number of screws. The one drawback I see, other than those blue fans, is that the motherboard is mounted vertically on one of the sides. If this does make the recommended motherboards sound worse this could be a problem. I suppose you could remofe the feet, put on some stick on feet and put it on its side. That wouldn't work well if you wanted the ripping drive internal, but since it should be better off external this may not matter.
As the Lina Li case sells for $149 it is not too expensive an alternative to the others so far discussed. Lian Li also has a newer aluminum case similar to the PC-V354 that is the PC-V355 but I don't think it is likely to be as good a choice. The good: the motherboard is placed horizontally on the bottom, the power supply still has access to the IEC connector, it is more compact at 11.14"W x 10.35"H x 15.2"D and the big, blue fans are gone from the front - replaced by a more discreet slot with a fan behind it. The bad: capacity is down to 4 - 3.5" drives and one 5.25" with external access but it comes out of the upper side! and the side panels are held on by some plastic clip-type devices. It appears that there were a number of complaints from users or the 354 about having to take so many tiny screws off to remove the sides and apparently Lian Li listened and removed all of them! Personally I don't think that is a good idea as early reviews claim there is a somewhat flimsy feel to the 355 as the side panels can move around a bit and even sometimes squeak! I would rather have the 8 screws per side of the 354 which I could then optimize the torque for.
So that's what I've discovered about cases so far. Interesting to see if another really good case comes to the fore.