Considering its size, it shouldn't fit half of that

Oct 24, 2014 10:02 GMT  ·  By

It's a well-known and obvious fact that the smaller a PC case is, the less hardware it can fit within. Lian Li, however, just loves to steamroll through all conventions, and the new PC-Q26 is just the latest evidence of that.

Having gained initial fame, infamy even, for making PC cases shaped like red spiders and other such strange things, Lian Li managed to take off a few years ago.

Since then, it has steadily integrated its activities into the normal flow of the PC chassis industry, but that doesn't mean it has totally let go of what got it noticed in the first place.

Which is to say, it still likes to implement at least one or two oddities in its products. The PC-Q26 is definitely a supporting example here.

The Lian Li PC-Q26 mini-ITX case

What sets this thing apart from all other mini-ITX cases is the sheer storage support it possesses. Normally, you'd be hard-pressed to cram more than two or three drive bays inside one of these things.

Indeed, many we've written about stick to one or two 3.5-inch bays and maybe a third 2.5-inch one, assuming they don't just settle for 2.5-inch ones alone.

The new PC-Q26, however, has no fewer than ten 3.5-inch drive bays, plus a 2.5-inch bay and a hot-swap backplane for two 3.5-inch drives.

You can, of course, easily take off the side panels to use those bays, and can even add backplanes if you need to. All in the interest of turning your mini PC into a home or office pseudo-server or NAS, shall we say.

Besides the ludicrous storage expansion capabilities, the Lain PC-Q26 offers the usual fare of motherboard tray (not detachable) and expansion slots. You won't be able to install any powerful video card though, and you won't be able to put any optical drive inside either, since all the space is dedicated to the internal drive range we mentioned before.

Although we suppose that a short enough video card (no longer than a mini-ITX platform itself) could be used. It's up to you to decide between using this thing for a full PC or for a NAS/server.

For those who want specific numbers, graphics cards of up to 190 mm / 7.4 inches in length are supported, along with CPU coolers up to 150mm / 5.9 inches, as well as power supplies up to 190mm / 7.4 inches in width.

Availability and pricing

The Lian Li PC-Q26 should be up for sale in North America at a price of $189 / €150 with rubber rails for feet and USB 3.0 ports (two) and HD audio on the front panel.

Lian Li PC-Q26 (4 Images)

Lian Li PC-Q26
Lian Li PC-Q26, side viewLian Li PC-Q26 insides
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