Evolution of Lian Li's SOHO Server Cases

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.