A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior of the chassis, you are required to remove a total of three thumb screws holding each panel in place. The top such screw actually locks a plastic spring loaded clip, which actually has the sturdiness to hold the entire panel by itself. So if you keep your case at home and frequently swap parts, you can keep it shut without any screws. The side panels are made of aluminum and feature a thin foam lining on the interior. This is intended to act as sound dampening material, but the consistency and feel of the material is very loose and soft, unlike the usual sheets you can buy seperately. The doors themselves can be bend with a simple push and actually ship a bit out of shape. It is really disappointing to see such a construction on a fairly expensive enclosure. Turning the case over and removing the other side panel, there are some good news and some bad.
First the good: Silverstone has included a single plastic bracket which holds a standard SATA power and data cable. This makes the bay hot swappable. The bad news: There is only a single one, so you will have to go out and spend some more money to equip all bays with such a functionality. The mainboard tray also lacks a cutout so that you may remove a cooler backplate without having to take out the entire board. Other, much cheaper cases, feature such a very handy opening.


The front HDD bays - a whooping seven of them - can be accessed seperately by pulling out the plastic trays. These lock in place with a simple plastic mechanism, not requiring any screws to do so. The front fan, which cools the hard drive bays, is guarded by a dust filter, which can be pulled out for cleaning. The optical drive bay uses large plastic locks. These should hold the drives in place quite nicely and seem to be installed very well, without any form of loose parts or play in the locked position.


The rear bottom of the chassis holds the power supply. It has a dust filter as well. It is great to see that Silverstone has managed to cover all intake fans with such filters, greatly reducing the dust intake. Above that are seven mainboard expansion slots. These are placed in such a manner, that you are required to use the holes on the edge of the case frame to reach them. This means that you better have a long and slim screw driver at your immediate disposal. Thumb screws whould have been a bit better in this area. Above that is the 120 mm exaust fan, with a traditional fan guard as protection.


The top I/O connectors are color coded, which should make it even simpler to plug them into the right headers on the mainboard. The top exaust fan also features a large guard and pushes air out the top of the Fortress chassis.