Written By:
Date Posted: February 15, 2002

Like the SX1030B I looked at, the hard drive rack is removable, via a locking latch. I don't think any explanation is needed, since it's pretty obvious which is the locked and unlocked positions. The third fan area is located in the hard drive bay, which will be handy (and cool) for fast spinning drives.

The side door is totally removable, making for quick and easy access. It's also self locking, in a way. You have to lift the latch to swing the door out, and listen for it to click when it closes. There are no screws, which is great, and if security is an issue, you can use the included keys to lock it.

I was a little bothered by the fact that there was no removable motherboard tray. My reasoning is that some motherboards have their sockets very close to the power supply, and in some cases, it makes for some tough times when trying to work a screw driver in there to attach a heatsink. In these cases, I put the heatsink on before installing the motherboard.

The case interior is fairly spacious, though keep in mind, "spacious" is relative. For a mini tower, it has quite a bit of room, but for those accustomed to large towers, it's tight. This wouldn't be such a concern if it didn't have this annoying stabalizing running right across the case. If you have a large heatsink (pre-installed on the motherboard for the previous reasons I mentioned), it can be tricky working it around the bar. I don't think anyone is going to use this case as an ottoman, and since it's pretty solid, this bar could have been left out, or at least placed higher.

The front bezel. The bezel consists of two parts. The above picture, to the left, is illustrating the push button (there are two, one on either side) needed to remove the upper half of the bezel. To the right, you can see the area to grip when removing the bottom half, which only requires a slight tug.

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