The Frontal Panel

The frontal panel is entirely made of aluminum and you can see it on Figure 6 with the frontal door removed.

click to enlarge
Figure 6: Frontal panel.

To remove the covers to install drives you first need to open the two lateral latches (which are black on the silver model), as shown on Figure 7. With these latches opened you can remove the covers to add/remove drives.

click to enlarge
Figure 7: Opening the lateral latches.

click to enlarge
Figure 8: Frontal panel with latches opened.

If you pay attention to the pictures above you can clearly see the four external 5 ¼” bays, the two external 3 ½” bays for floppy disk drives and a 120-mm fan. Removing this fan you will find four 3 ½” bays for hard disk drives.

This fan is different from all other frontal fans we’ve seen to date. Instead of using regular wires for its electrical connection to the power supply it uses three metallic contacts (see Figure 9), making it extremely easy to remove this fan from the case, step that is necessary for installing hard disk drives.

click to enlarge
Figure 9: Frontal 120-mm fan removed from the case. It doesn’t use wires on its connection to the power supply.

Total or partial reproduction of the contents of this site, as well as that of the texts available for downloading, be this in the electronic media, in print, or any other form of distribution, is expressly forbidden. Those who do not comply with these copyright laws will be indicted and punished according to the International Copyrights Law.

We do not take responsibility for material damage of any kind caused by the use of information contained in Hardware Secrets.