Legit Case Reviews
Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid Tower Case Review
| Manufacturer: | Thermaltake |
| Product: | Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid Tower Case |
| Date: | Wed, Sep 22, 2010 - 12:00 PM |
| Written By: | Brian Giacoletti - |
| Share: |
Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid Tower Case Internal Impressions
Just like the outside of the Thermaltake Armor A60 the inside is painted black as well. If you have read any of my other case reviews you already know that I really like it when the outside paint color matches the inside paint color, and if that color happens to be black... even better. The paint is nice and even and smooth inside and out as are all of the edges on the steel chassis and panels. I ran my hand along the whole inside of the case as well as the side panels and I did not feel a sharp edge anywhere. To say the inside of this case is huge is an understatement. I think a family of three could move into one of these. OK, not really, but you get the point; there is a ton of room inside this thing. Just take a look at the next section where all of the internal parts have been installed. This case dwarfs my MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard and makes my Radeon HD 5770 video cards look tiny. As a matter of fact, the Thermaltake Armor A60 can handle video cards up to 305 MM long and can support a CPU heat sink and fan up to 180 MM in height. Which means it will handle almost anything you throw at it.
The top front of the case is where you will find the three 5.25 drive bays for your optical drives or any fan controllers you may want to install. Thermaltake has made the installation of your optical drives a breeze with its tool-less flip up locking design. All you do is pull back on the lever, flip the fastener up, slide in your drive, flip the fastener back down and pull the lever back to lock it in place. You can literally install your drives in seconds.
Right below the 5.25 drive bays is a drive bay that is designed to hold smaller 3.5 devices such as a floppy drive or a card reader.
In front of all of the drive bays Thermaltake has included a Blue LED 120 MM intake fan that is located at the front bottom of the case and is easily accessed by pulling off the front bezel.
Below that at the front of the case are the 3.5 drive bays. But wait, there is something a bit different about these bays. For starters, the top one is the bay for the hot swappable external drive that can be added or removed from the system from outside the case, but the five bays below that are all internal drive bays. The drives are mounted in removable brackets that can hold either a standard 3.5 hard drive or they can also hold the smaller 2.5 drives such as a solid state drive. Now I finally have a safe place to mount my solid state drives. Trust me; this is a killer feature if you have an older case and have solid state drives that need to be mounted in it. It can be tricky or, in some cases, darn near impossible to do. So I have to say that I am a huge fan of the addition of support for 2.5 drives. The brackets that hold the hard drives are simple to install as you just slide them into the bay and they will click into place. To get them out just squeeze the two sides of the front of the bracket together and that releases the drive. One thing worth mentioning is that the brackets are not tool less and do require that you screw the drives into place with a flat head or Phillips head screwdriver.
The really big feature on this case is the external 3.5 hot swappable hard drive bay. This bay is protected by a swinging flap that stays closed when there is not a drive in use, but retracts back when a drive is inserted into the hot swap bay in the side panel. If you look way far back there you can see the mounted SATA back plane sitting there on the very top internal 3.5 drive bay. Can you see it? All it takes is to push the drive in, wait to hear the click and any hot swap compatible hard drive is ready for action. This is very handy feature if you like to keep different OS setups on different drives or if you just like to store your data across many drives. So no matter what your preference is, this sweet feature will serve you well.
Next Page - Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid Tower Case Internal Impressions (Continued)
Socialize