Antec Sonata Elite Case Review
The Disk Drive Bays (Cont’d)
Contents
Both Sonata Elite and Sonata III 500 have four internal 3.5” bays for hard disk drives, but using completely different mechanisms. Sonata III 500 comes with four “drawers” and hard disk drives must be screwed to these drawers. Sonata Elite uses a completely different mechanism that was clearly designed to reduce noise.
Figure 16: 3.5” bays.
Each bay is comprised by two metallic rulers that are attached to the chassis using thumbscrews. To install a hard drive you must remove the two rulers from the bay where you want to install it and screw the rulers to the drive using the screws that come with the mechanisms. These screws have a silicone ring around them to absorb vibration and thus reduce noise level. After the hard drive is installed, there is absolutely no metallic part from the case touching it; the drive is “floating” using the four screws and silicone rings. This way the drive can freely vibrate without passing any vibration or noise to the chassis.
Figure 17: Rulers installed on the hard drive.
Figure 18: Hard drive installed on the case.
In Figure 19, you can see all accessories that come with this case.
Figure 19: Accessories.
