The first step - here's the box

We chose our case.  An Antec NSK6582B.  It's a midi-tower case, which is a good compromise between a full tower and a micro case.  It should be plenty big enough for all the hardware we need.  We looked at a few other options before deciding on this particular one.  The Antec Three Hundred case gets good reviews too, but didn't come with a power supply.  Another brand we considered is Lian Li, who make lovely looking cases, but they were a bit pricey for us.

Front panel of the case

I suppose you could say "a black one" as opposed to a silver one.  But what else makes it special?  It has space for five hard drives inside and four more on the outside!  And it comes with a power supply that is good on energy efficiency.  A lot of cases come without a power supply, and it was cheaper to buy case and power supply together.  The one we have will supply up to 430 Watts.  This isn't huge but should be enough for what we want - we'll keep a running total of power consumption as we go.

The panel on the back has holes for only a few USB ports, but our "mobo" comes with a panel to replace it and, as we reported on the mobo post, that panel has 10 USB ports and a firewire ports.  The case itself has also a firewire port on the front, which is going to be really handy for working with all those mini-DV tapes at the back of the cupboard.

We think the front of the case looks really cool - when we get a DVD drive, we'll have to make sure it matches. It comes with one fan (12cm) and also has space for extra fans. We're planning to buy some LED fans that emit a blue light.  We think that will look really cool!!!  I'll report back when we decide which fans exactly. 

The power supply

Why fans, you might ask though.  Fans are needed in a computer to keep the components cool. Overheating may cause your computer to crash. Even if that doesn't happen, you will probably shorten the lifespan of your computer considerably if you don't keep the components cool. (And, no, wafting it with a newspaper occasionally doesn't help!)

And how do computers get hot in the first place?  All that hard(ware) work in there generates some heat! Look at this forum about computers where someone explained it in a bit more detail.

Finally, why start with the case?  No big reason, but it's help you get excited about what you'll have at the end!