I was able to access the interior of the chassis by removing two small screws from the back of the case. Inside we are presented with a bundle of pre-installed cables which are used to supply the front panel and a pair drive mounting brackets which are finish in a high gloss white paint.
The drive mounts are suspended from the left side of the chassis and a support bar. This bar can be removed to aid with motherboard and component installation.
In the right side of the chassis we have a high quality 120mm filtered air intake fan and space for one more to it’s left.
The left side of the chassis features the same fan design, although this one comes fitted with a guard to prevent wires from the PSU and hard drives getting trapped in the fan blades. The air filter on the right is to supply airflow to your PSU dependant on which orientation you choose to mount it.
Lastly we have the inside of the top panel, which is lined with a high quality and heavy duty sound dampening material. This is a welcome bonus as the less noise from your HTPC build the better, as no one likes fans distracting their movies.
So if you can only have a slimline ODD with an ITX build and there’s no 5 1/4 bay, this means the only way to install a BluRay drive is with an ITX board. Don’t get me wrong, I like Fractal Design but I think there’s a serious flaw here. The point of a media centre is that it’s a centre for all media. With no option for an optical drive with larger motherboards you become somwhat limited on it’s use.
How about using it a a media server? Well, no, not really. A limit of 4 drives reduces it’s usefulness, plus you don’t need a full ATX motherboard for a media server, M-ATX or ITX would do just as well.
It’s a good looking case and no doubt it’s quiet and easy to build but I have to question it’s usefulness for it’s target audience.
ATX boards are VERY GOOD for media centers that will be used to receive satellite and terrestrial TV signals and will also be used for gaming and bluray (after all, the goal is to have everything in a single box, that’s the job of the word “center” in “media center”). You’ll see your PCIe and PCI slots rapidly taken once you add a few tuners and a serious audio card. So this case is an awful design IMO. If you plan on using an m-ITX motherboard, you have plenty of options out there that are much better than this case. If you want ordinary ATX, you’re better off with solutions from Antec, for instance.
Really bad design IMO. Good looks, terrible functionality.
I Also wonder how Fractal Design became well known for their slick styling, when the styling of every one I’ve seen seems to be that of a featureless black box.
It’s called minimalism. They’re known for it because it’s a rare quality given the obnoxious aesthetics that typify PC cases.
Hey look! It’s a Lian Li PC-C60 without all the annoying 3.5″ and 5.25″ drive capacity and ATX/GPU/ODD configuration options! Thumbs up!
I believe you can have a micro-ATX motherboard and still be able to fit an optimal drive.
optical drive, thank you for correctly me iPhone…
This is great, except for trying to find a slim blu ray drive, and using said slim blu ray drive. Someone will break that flimsy thing in a home environment. Would have been nice to allow a normal drive that has its door and button integrated with the case, or a slot load as on some other nice cases.
No IR window makes this a no-go. It makes no sense to have this beautiful clean case and then have to plop an external IR receiver on top of it or leave the flip-down door open to install a IR dongle. I also don’t understand the decsion to leave off a 5.25″ drive bay. The Lian-Li PC-C50B comes closer to what I am looking for but it too has no IR window. The search continues…