Internal Overview
Drive Pillar
The inside of the case is just as innovative. In the front is the drive pillar. This consists of four bars that make the frot third of the case. On each of them are sets of mounting hardware, I will call them corner brackets since that is what they look like. There is space for 9 drives to be mounted this way.
There are two things that make the drive pillar special. The first is that the drives can be mounted facing in any direction, though having them face into the case isn’t practical. With the 5.2” drives you simply remove the rails from their current positions between the front-back pillars and put them and the left-right pillars.
For the 3.5” drives it is even easier. Antec has what is called the AirMount system. It is essentially a really thick rubber band with hooks on either end and mounting hardware in the middle. It allows you to mount the hard drive and then hook it into the drive pillar. See, each of those corner brackets I mentioned earlier has two holes in them to hook the AirMounts to facing in any direction.
The idea behind the AirMount system is that drives that it will isolate any vibration coming from the drives and, I assume, absorb some level of shock if the case s knocked around. I personally like the idea, but they don’t seem to hold the drives very tightly, they will wiggle if you bump the case. Though they won’t break, I tried stretching one out.
At the bottom of the drive pillar are holes for mounting 2 2.5” drives, like SSDs or even a notebook drive if you wanted to. Antec supplies you with nice thick silicon grommets and long screws to help with this and also cushion the drives.
Motherboard Area
In the default configuration the motherboard is mounted on the top of the case with the PSU in the bottom. As mentioned earlier, this can be switched. The motherboard tray is, as you would suspect, a nice sturdy metal. It is removable, but not in the sense that you could easily slide it out. That requires removing the entire back to the machine, it is not something you would do. Then again, there is plenty of space inside the case, so there is no need to. There is a large cutout in the top portion of the motherboard tray allowing you to easily mount CPU coolers that require you to have access to the bottom of the motherboard without having to remove it from the case.
There are also three wire harnesses on the back for keeping the wring neat, which is a must since you panels are essentially see through.
Great review, great case.
However you need to work on your writing skills. The phrase, “The case would have a much more polished look and feel a bit more study and solid, but it would add weight, and cost” makes no sense. And, “Despite those cons, the case is still an excellent case” is written poorly. Why not say something like, “Despite these shortcomings this is still an excellent case…”?
Who really cares Mike. I could comment about your “writing skills” if you’d like as well. Starting a sentence with, “And,” should be written with, “As well,”.
No need to fight over proper writing skills etc, good review overall and keep in mind this is only Rich’s 3rd review here so he is adjusting to writing. Also the LanBoy air is quite the unique case and very hard to write about.
Cons : dust magnet?..
Considering pretty much the whole case its ‘mesh’ materials.. ^^;