SilverStone Milo ML04

Drive storage capabilities on this HTPC enclosure include one 5.25-inch bay that also fits one 3.5-inch HDD or two 2.5-inch HDD/SSDs and then room for two 3.5/2.5-inch HDD/SDDs and finally one 2.5-inch-only drive bay. In other words, there's room for storing up to five 2.5-inch disk drives or three 3.5-inch drives in this system for meeting the ever-growing HTPC storage capacity needs.

The ATX PSU area can accommodate a power supply up to 140mm in length, which is perfect for the SilverStone Strider PSU. Meanwhile, the CPU cooler height must not exceed 70mm. In the CPU area on the top of the case is an oversized vent for additional cooling in the CPU area, which can be covered by an included magnetic fan filter. The four 80mm fan slots are located on the side of the chassis nearest the CPU socket area but no fans are included with this entry-level HTPC case.

The SilverStone Milo ML04 chassis retails for just $75 USD, which makes it an incredible bargain given SilverStone's well-known build quality and engineering success. Setting up this HTPC enclosure was also a breeze. For this review I had installed an Intel DH87RL micro-ATX motherboard with Intel Core i3 4130 "Haswell" CPU with HD Graphics 4400, OCZ Vertex SSD, SilverStone 400W Strider PSU, and 2GB of DDR3 system memory. No optical drive was installed given that they're becoming increasingly uncommon, especially for Linux systems when most open-source packages have to be fetched over the Internet and installing most Linux distributions can be done via USB. Following this review, the system will be added to our new test farm for per-commit Mesa graphics driver benchmarking.

Overall, the assembly of the Milo ML04 system with Intel Haswell hardware and an SSD went incredibly smooth. There were no issues at all and it was a quick and easy build with no hassles. As a forewarning, cable management might be a bit of a challenge if utilizing all of the HDD/SSD bays and an optical drive. For being a SilverStone case selling for just $75 USD, this is a grand deal if you're looking at a low-cost enclosure for an HTPC system or simply for a low-profile system. If you're looking at an HTPC enclosure that's a bit more elegant than the Milo series, that's where SilverStone's more costly Grandia series is an option.