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SilverStone Fortress FT01 Case Review
Author: William West
Published: Thursday, January 22, 2009
Case Layout & Features Cont.
Moving into the FT01 we see the 7 impressive 3.5" hard drive carriages. While most of you will never fill these up it does allow for tons of extra hard drive storage for a small server type setup. In among this area you will find a hot-swappable SATA hard drive dock too.
We will look at this more here in a moment.
We will look at this more here in a moment.
The hard drive carriages are made from a very strong plastic with rubber grommets at the ends to absorb vibration. The hard drives are secured in place a long screw to make sure the drive never gets away from the carriage. These carriages then slide into the FT01 racks with great ease, and then latch in to make a very secure resting place for you data.
Moving to the backside of the hard drive racks we get to a see a neat little object mounted towards the top. Given the right motherboard settings you can make one SATA hard drive in the FT01 hot-swappable using this slot area. Once again another sign that the FT01 has a small server feel to it.
This also makes you realize some of the engineering that went into the SilverStone FT01.
This also makes you realize some of the engineering that went into the SilverStone FT01.
Let's get into how the FT01 is setup for wire management. A pesky situation for most cases is the lack of places to hide unwanted cable clutter. The FT01 has this covered, in terms of available space you’ll find plenty of room around the hard drive area and at the bottom of the case near the PSU. Behind the motherboard tray you will find some room to hide cables and the foam on the door will hold the cables securely in place.
We touched on the PSU area a small bit in the last paragraph let's get deeper into it. Much like many cases of today the PSU has been moved to the bottom of the case. There is a mesh filter to help keep the dust bunnies out and a large open channel at the back of the case to allow cables to run free throughout.
When deciding on a PSU for the FT01 keep in mind it is mid-sized tower and while normal to slightly large PSUs will fit you may have trouble getting the larger 1Kw units installed with enought room for cable routing.
We’re pretty sure there is going to be some talented guys (and gals) out there just waiting to prove Ninjalane wrong on this.
We’re pretty sure there is going to be some talented guys (and gals) out there just waiting to prove Ninjalane wrong on this.