The Corsair Obsidian 550D comes with an aluminum front door. Front doors can be troublesome, depending on how they are implemented. For example, some manufacturers put the case on/off button and the USB ports behind the door, which is very annoying, as you need to open the door whenever you want to turn on your computer or install a USB device. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen with the Corsair Obsidian 550D. Another common problem with doors is the direction they open, which may not match the location where the case is installed on your workplace. For example, if your case is installed against a wall or a desk to its right, you want the door to be opened from the left side of the case, not from the right. Most cases that come with a door don’t allow you to change the direction the door is opened. Another highlight of the 550D is that its door can be opened either from the left or from the right, without any additional configuration, and you can also simply remove the door if you don’t like it, by pulling it off the case. The door comes with a dampening foam sheet on its inner side.

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Figure 4: Front door

The front panel of the case has four external 5.25” bays.

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Figure 5: Front panel

The case comes with two 120 mm fans on its front panel. They are protected with a lid that has a dampening foam sheet on it, just like the lids located on the left and top panels, and they also have a magnetic air filter. The fans pull air from the sides and bottom part of their compartment, as the front lid is solid. These fans use standard three-pin fan power connectors, but no technical specifications for these fans are provided.

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Figure 6: Front fans

The case comes with two USB 3.0 ports and the traditional audio jacks on the top part of the front panel. As already mentioned, the door doesn’t cover them. The USB 3.0 ports use an internal USB 3.0 connector, and the case comes with an adapter for you to install them on a USB 2.0 header on the motherboard in case your motherboard doesn’t have a USB 3.0 header.

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Figure 7: Buttons and connectors