Installation

Filling the tray with hardware is quite straight forward. The main advantage is the fact, that you can easily install everything outside of the case. Once done, slide it into the enclosure and connect all the needed cables.


To place up to ten hard drives into the case, simply screw in the rubber covered spacers on the drive. I have installed four of these, but it turns out that you only need three for each drive. This not only makes the installation really simple, but also prevents vibrations building up within the enclosure. In case you have not beeen keeping count, this is the third feature to prevent vibration noise inside the S21T.


To install a drive you need to remove the metal bars from the drive bays first. This can easily be done without any tools by unscrewing the four tall screws. Once removed, the "lanes" for the hard drives can be seen. You may wonder why there are so many when only five hard drives can be installed on each side. Such a feature gives you the freedom to space fewer drives wider apart for better cooling.


Once you have dropped the drive(s) into the case, place the locking bars on the appropriate locations and secure them with the tall screws. This system should make it very easy to install up to ten hard drives inside the S21T, which would be a big hassle otherwise - well done Origen AE.


There is a single optical drive bay which does require the use of a screw driver and a total of eight screws. Four hold the cover on the optical drive of your choice, while the other four are needed to secure the entire contraption within the case. According to the manual from Origen AE, you do not have to worry about removing the drive cover until after you have turned the enclosure on and have ejected the drive tray.


The power supply is installed with four normal screws - nothing out of the ordinary here. The afore mentioned problem with the hard drive cooling fan arises when the mainboard utilizes angled connectors. Some manufactures use IDE or SATA connectors at a 90° angle on the edge of the board. Due to the 92 mm fans, there is no chance to reach the single IDE port of the Asus P5B deluxe. You need to remove the fan if you want to use this interface. Such a problem could be solved if Origen AE were to install an 80 mm fan instead. For this review, the fan in question was removed to allow use of the DVD+/-RW.


Once everything is installed, it becomes apparent how strict everything has been calculated. Most of the interior is taken by the 10 hard drive spaces, and the optical drive is very close to the CPU cooler. Using a Scythe Infinity in the S21T will not be possible, due to the extensive dimensions of the cooler. The power supply is also very close to the hard drive bays, which means that you will not be able to install the long 1200W PSUs inside this case.
The last, but actually not that surprising limitation concerns graphics cards. These cannot be longer than the Radeon X800 we used for this review, if you plan to fill all ten hard drive bays. If you want to use something like a GeForce 8800 GTX or Radeon HD2900XT, you will be limited to five hard drives.