Assembly

Installing the mainboard within the chassis is done with the use of traditional mainboard spacers. There is no removable mainboard tray and the chassis is quite compact, if you fill up the case with multiple graphic cards and such, you may find yourself urning for more space.


The power supply is also secured with screws. You have the choice of installing the fan facing up or downward within the Fortress. I have chosen downward, as this gives the unit access to cold air, while the dust filter should keep the majority of dirt out of the Strider.


The hard drive still requires four screws to hold it in place within the plastic tray. You may then slide it into place and close the front to lock it down. While such a system is good for SATA drives, it may not be the best for IDE units. You are still required to use a screwdriver and the large plastic trays may block some of the air flow from the front intake fan. The fact that you are stuffing seven drives into spaces usually intended for five does not help either.


To remove the front cover, you are required to take out two screws. It is made of aluminum just like the rest of the case and looks much like the one you find on most other high-end enclosures from Silverstone. Once the cover has been pulled out, simply slide in the optical drive and push the plastic contraption to lock the unit in place. It holds surprisingly well and the drive is held in place perfectly fine. This is actually the very first system I have used, with clamps that grip on the installed device so hard that it can no longer be moved around at all.


Once everything installed, the case does become a bit crowded. There is no easy way to do cable management, so if you pack the case full of hardware, expect to see the cables to go with the guts. The smaller brother of the TJ07 is naturally lacking the height, being a mid-tower case, but also is much shorter, further reducing the space within the unit.

Finished Looks

Once you turn on the case, there is not really a lot to tell that the unit is up and running. All the fans within the system are very quiet. The Fortress looks very clean and the hue of black goes well with the plastic covers of any external drives.


The LG DVD drive has been placed in the top slot. Like I mentioned before there are no 3.5" bays, so you will have to spend some more money buying the appropriate adapter for such devices. The red power LED is quite weak but gets the job done nicely.