A Closer Look - Outside

Out of the box, the Fractal Design Terra is wrapped in two bands for shipping, to keep the two side panels secure. That isn't really needed, thanks to the cardboard spacers, but it does make bagging the chassis at the factory far easier. The color choice is beautiful and the anodization of the aluminium pieces is flawless.


In the front, there is a thick slab of machined aluminium with a thick wooden element running across the bottom. Here, Fractal has embedded a circular power button, a singular USB-A as well as a USB-C port. The one thing missing is a power LED, which is somewhat inconvenient as there is no apparent way to figure out if the system is up and running otherwise. Fractal could have easily embedded a tiny white LED in the button or next to it in the wood for example. Also, it would have been great if there was a single audio combo header, so that users of wired headsets would not be forced to run their cable towards the back of the chassis. However, the lack of this type of port is rather common with SFF enclosures like this. Looking at the rear, the interior frame is made of steel and has been coated all black. The frame already hints at a classic sandwich layout, but as we will see later on, Fractal has really gone into quite the engineering detail here as well.


Both sides of the chassis have elongated cutouts that act as air vents. This is good, but still quite restrictive, so don't expect the Terra to be the coolest chassis you can get your hands on. That most SFF enclosures tend to run a bit warmer in real life and the Terra is geared towards either more casual uses with short GPUs in combination with a 120 mm AIO or longer GPUs while relying on air cooling all around.


The top has the same elongated vent pattern, so it is clear that Fractal is really trying to provide as much passive ventilation as possible. The entire top cover can be pulled off using the nice leather tab at the back of the case. Some could say that much like the fact that dress shoes should match the color of your belt, that Fractal could have opted for brown leather here to match that of the wood in the front instead.


On the underside, you can start seeing some of the engineering that has gone into the interior of the Fractal Design Terra. There are orange locking elements which are only there for shipping/transport purposes for example. Also, a very interesting thing to note is the fact that the floor of this can can potentially hold two 120 mm fans, but the very detailed manual makes no mention of this. That could be a definitive hint that Fractal is planning a larger Terra XL chassis that could go taller to provide room for two floor mounted fans or a 240 mm AIO.