A Closer Look - Inside

For interior access, simply pull the tab of each panel off the chassis. Fractal includes a metal shroud on the bottom that may also be used to place two SSD trays here to show off your solid-state drives. Two plastic covers allow for any kind of liquid-cooling setup, even those occupying the full height of the chassis. Thanks to the elongated frame, this will have very little real-world impact on the maximum length of GPUs.


Taking a closer look at the opposite side of the Meshify 2 Lite interior, things start to depart noticeably from the original. This is really where the "Lite" shows while aiming to stay functional. Gone is the possibility to stack individual hard-drive cages in the interior, or the backside-mounted multi-purpose plate. Instead, you are provided with a simple metal extension of the motherboard tray on which you may mount up to two 3.5" drives. These same cutouts align with the two metal bars which ship as part of the enclosure's accessories. These may be used to install a reservoir within the interior of the chassis.


The case still ships with three pre-installed Velcro strips, but gone are the plastic cable channels. Some may find that the lack of these makes assembly easier, so no real tangible loss there, either. On top of that, you still get two separate metal 2.5" hard-drive plates which may be relocated to the shroud if you would rather show off your drives instead of hiding them behind the motherboard.


In the front are two more hard-drive trays in a removable cage underneath the shroud. This brings the possible total of 3.5" drives inside the Meshify 2 Lite to seven out of the box. Add the two 2.5" trays and you have an excellent nine storage drives. Above that is the area dedicated to air intake or liquid cooling with the ability to place up to a 360 mm radiator there if you sacrifice the 5.25" slot.


The PSU bay in the rear is quite spacious, so you can have your pick when it comes to your unit of choice. However, you may also install two 140 mm fans or a 280 mm radiator here by removing the HDD cage and using a reasonably compact PSU. Above that, the seven expansion slots with the nicely designed covers have thumb screws for easy removal. In the very top, we clearly see the quality rear exhaust fan.


In the ceiling, all the elongated mounting holes are as far away from the motherboard as possible, and there is plenty of height clearance as well, so things should be just fine no matter which motherboard you settle on.


As there is no fan or ARGB PCB within the Meshify 2 Lite, Fractal instead built the ARGB controller into the case I/O panel. You are provided with a universal connector for easy expandability as well, with the whole system powered by SATA.


Besides that, the rest of the I/O wiring is traditional for a modern chassis. All the fans come with 3-pin pass-through connectors so that you may daisy-chain them and use a single header on your motherboard. The same goes for the separate ARGB cable each of these comes with.