[flyinghamster]

Indeed, if I'm going to build a home or small-office server, I want a 4U case, just so I can use fans that are large enough to be reasonably quiet (let's say, 80mm or bigger). Bonus points if it could somehow run 120 or 140 mm fans, but I haven't seen such a beast. I've seen 1U servers in action at a client, and they're horrifyingly loud.

[tpxl]

If you don't really need a rack case, I'd even go as far as to use a normal case with regular Noctua fans. The hardware for PCs is probably more expensive though (plus no ECC, single socket, ...).