SilverStone's Seta H2 is a monster PC case with room for 15 drives

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Data remains king, and SilverStone's latest workstation-class chassis has the potential to hold an awful lot of it. The SilverStone Seta H2 supports most standard board sizes up through SSI-EEB with room for up to eight expansion cards and GPUs up to 428.9 mm in length (when using 25mm thick front fans). There's also plenty of space for air and liquid cooling setups including CPU coolers up to 188mm in height and multiple radiators.

The case accepts a standard ATX power supply measuring up to 220mm in length, but storage capacity is the major selling point here.

SilverStone's latest can accommodate up to 15 2.5-inch SSDs / 3.5-inch HDDs in varying configurations, including 15mm thick solid-state drives. With 24 TB HDDs and a deep enough wallet, it is possible to build a workstation with north of 300 TB of local storage space.

The SilverStone Seta H2, model SST-SEH2-B, measures 244.9mm (W) x 528.3mm (H) x 543.2mm (D) and is constructed primarily of steel. It weighs 15.2 kg empty and will be far heavier when loaded with drives. It is certainly not the sort of case you want to haul around to LAN parties and the like.

Aesthetically speaking, the case is classic SilverStone – that is, subtle and timeless. It's offered in a single color – black – and has a small array of front I/O ports including a USB Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports, and a combo audio jack. Perforated mesh panels, cable management covers, and dust filters all come standard. It lacks the panoramic windows and flashy LED lighting that most modern cases obsess over, and instead relies on a utilitarian look and feel. As they say, what's old is new again, right?

The SilverStone Seta H2 is available now and is priced at $209.99 over on Amazon. SilverStone also has the Seta H2M should you require something a bit more compact. It accommodates up to eight total 2.5-inch SSDs and will only set you back $119.99.

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SilverStone's Seta H2 is a monster PC case with room for 15 drives

 

[Subset6]

I’m done with monstrosity case’s. Funny story tho, many years ago one of my early builds I used the Antec 1200 case.. big heavy steel case. Weighed in at 100lbs or so fully loaded.

Well one night I went to bed and heard some commotion in my computer room. Woke up and caught a thief in the act. He had already jacked my monitor and iPhone. However, the (by far) most expensive item in that room was my monstrosity PC.

Due to the sheer mass of it our thief was unable to steal it. I scared him off, eventually the cops caught him. Never saw my monitor or phone again. The huge case seemed like a good idea, and in that case it saved me well over $2k but the thing was such a chore to move around and to clean. Been with cube style split designs ever since.

 

[yRaz]

Looks like a good case for a NAS build for those interested in a home lab, but at that point I like to go the server rack build. You can pick up used racks pretty cheap, just saying.

 

[NumberNine]

I've exclusively used fractal cases in every build for 12 years now. I've built two Node setups, four Define setups, and one Pop (Pops are garbage btw). I am a Fractal loyalist to a fault and yet this case makes zero sense to me. As yRaz pointed out, there are so many better options for working with so many HDDs.
Maybe the engineers were bored or this was someone's pet project.

 

[bviktor]

Would it be too obvious to hold 16 drives for sensible RAID arrangements?

 

[yRaz]

Would it be too obvious to hold 16 drives for sensible RAID arrangements?

I know that in my NAS setup I run 9 drives and 1 is kept blank so that it can automatically become the new parity drive while I order a new one. I've had to use and replace that 9th drive more times than I'm comfortable admitting

 

[Megalomaniac]

I have the Alienware Area 51 triad case. That weighs 76 pounds. It offered space for three standard sized HDD and multiple SSD. I may keep using it as a NAS when I get the new 5090 Area 51 this Black Friday.

 

[ThomasTECH]

This is an interesting concept NAS and PC AIO. I don't know there is a perfect NAS software for PC to form this type of setup. Most NAS use their own OS and software. I have a monster case and it is fun to have to learn about parts and be able to manage them. Would I buy another one, not now, Power fluxes hurt the unit to badly, I have moved to NAS and Laptops mostly. Still use my monster PC but Heavy Duty surge protectors and it is off almost always until I need it.

 

[bviktor]

I know that in my NAS setup I run 9 drives and 1 is kept blank so that it can automatically become the new parity drive while I order a new one. I've had to use and replace that 9th drive more times than I'm comfortable admitting

That's a valid suggestion, but in that case, this should be 17 drives, so...

 

[yRaz]

That's a valid suggestion, but in that case, this should be 17 drives, so...

you need a boot drive, so maybe it's one for the OS and 14 for storage. look, I'm not buying it and I'm not going to make excuses for it, I'm just talking about how I use my hardware in my homelab. And keeping a naked drive for parity repair in a NAS is a good idea. Especially if you're like me and cheap and love to buy used old server hardware

 

[AnilD]

I actually appreciate the no-glass, no-RGB design here. This case is basically a love letter to anyone running a home NAS, media server, or AI workstation who doesn't want to deal with custom rackmount gear. It’s rare to see consumer cases that prioritize storage density without sacrificing airflow or compatibility.

 

[axiomatic13]

This case would make a good UNRAID server, since UNRAID is very forgiving regarding matched drives. Stuff every old drive you have in here and put your old GPU in there too. PLEX/Jellyfin your way to greatness, run your own LLM, NAS etc.

 

[madboyv1]

Were my father still around, he'd have been all over this case. A 5.25" bay or two would have made it the unicorn case for him, the perfect upgrade from his HAF X. We had finally talked him out of BD backups/storage so he would have lived without BDF drives in this case at least. We'd joke he was trying to download the internet through a plastic straw for years before he finally got fiber.