Fractal Design Define XL Case Review
The Disk Drive Bays
Contents
The Fractal Design Define XL has four external 5.25” bays, one external 3.5” bay converted from one of the 5.25” bays, and ten 3.5”/2.5” bays in three cages, one with four bays in the motherboard compartment and two with three bays each in the power supply compartment. The case doesn’t have tool-less mechanisms for installing drives, but 5.25” devices are installed using thumbscrews.
Figure 20: Disk drive bays
As mentioned before, the upper hard disk drive bay can be removed for allowing the installation of longer video cards.
Figure 21: Upper hard drive cage removed
Figure 22: The top hard drive cage
Each 3.5”/2.5” bay is actually a small drawer, featuring rubber rings to reduce hard drive vibration and, thus, noise.
Figure 23: One of the 3.5”/2.5” bays