Slim case for HTPC

[jackar]

Hello,

I am in a process of looking at slim cases - I intend to build my very first HTPC. I have some challenges to face, and those are

• Height restriction - 9.5cm (3.75") maximum height. The shelf is little over 10cm (4") high.
• Must accomodate a drive bay in front for Blu-Ray reader. Preferably slim one.
• At least 1-2 USB 3.0 ports in front of the case

With this, I've come to the conclusion that I should be looking for a case from the likes of SilverStone, Fractal or LianLi.

So far, the candidates are:

• SilverStone ML06-E - 
• SilverStone ML09B - 9.9cm (3.93") - https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?area=en&pid=653

I plan to put the PC into a shelf, where the top and bottom airflow will be limited. I don't plan to use the PC for gaming, but I intend to put some low-power pentium and a dvb-t card inside. It will mainly be used as a blu-rat player, and to play content from the network. Thus, the PCI slot can be used for either dvb-t card, or surround sound card. I plan to use m.2 SSD as a drive, which saves me the need to look for cases with extra space for 2.5/3.5" slots.

 

If anyone has experience building similar system, I'll be glad to hear what your hurdles were building a system like this, what components you recommend using, and what would you do differently should you be building HTPC today.

Thanks

[emosun]

power supply? or power brick with barrel jack?

[jackar]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

power supply? or power brick with barrel jack?

I prefer SFX one, but DC one with power brick can be ok as well. Though I found that cases that make use of DC power supplies are often too small to accomodate a drive slot.