On its front panel, the DF-85 has three 120 mm fans with individual speed controllers, shown in Figure 5. The speed of each fan is controlled by an individual knob and you can change it from 1,000 rpm (33.3 cfm, 19.45 dBA) to 2,000 rpm (66.6 cfm, 34.5 dBA).

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Figure 5: Speed controller

Each fan is attached to a small door that covers three 3 ½” bays each, so the case has a total of nine 3 ½” bays (four of them – the top two and the bottom two – come with hot-swap connectors). These doors have a latch that is opened from inside the case.

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Figure 6: Doors opened

Each fan has an individual, washable air filter, which is very easy to remove.

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Figure 7: Air filter

The connectors and buttons of the Dark Fleet DF-85 are available on the top part of the front panel. This panel comes with three USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 port (blue connector). You may be wondering what the difference is between the USB 3.0 and the USB 2.0 ports. There are two differences. First, because it operates at a higher speed, the wires require better shielding. Second, USB 3.0 ports are available on the rear panel of the motherboards that come with this feature, and therefore, the USB 3.0 port of the front panel must use a regular USB A connector on its other end instead of a regular 10-pin header. So the available USB 3.0 port is attached to a standard USB connector that must be routed to the outside of the case and connected to one external USB 3.0 port available on the motherboard. No FireWire or eSATA port is available.

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Figure 8: Buttons and connectors

The DF-85 has an external 2 ½” bay with hot-swap connectors for you to easily install an SSD or a laptop hard disk drive. This bay is protected by a transparent lid and can be seen in Figures 8 and 9.

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Figure 9: External hot-swap 2 ½” bay