Antec Sonata III 500 Case

Inside Sonata III 500

The side panel is opened by pressing its lock and pulling it towards you, instead of pushing it to the rear side of the case as it happens on other cases. The side panel opens up to 225° and you also can remove it, so you don’t need to detach the panel from the case if you don’t want to.

Figure 5: Opening Sonata III 500.

The only problem about this case is that the other side panel can’t be removed from the case and the metallic plate where the motherboard is installed is permanently attached to the case. This isn’t the perfect scenario for installing a motherboard and upgrading or replacing smaller components that go on the motherboard, such as the CPU and memories. Having a removable plate makes it easier to add or replace these components, as you can easily remove the motherboard through the other side of the case without having to unscrew it from its metallic plate.

In Figure 6 we have an overall look from inside Sonata III 500.

Figure 6: Inside Sonata III 500.

In Figure 7, you can see the rear 120 mm fan and its speed control switch, which allows you to configure the fan to rotate on three different speeds.

Figure 7: Rear 120 mm fan.

This case has four internal 3.5” bays, which is more than enough for the majority of users, even those willing to build a RAID array with four hard disk drives. The drives are installed inside small drawers, as you can see in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Drawers for installing hard drives.