Nexus Prominent 9 Case Review

The Front Panel

One of the main differences between the Prominent 5 and the Prominent 9 is the front panel. The Prominent 9 has nine external 5.25” bays, which are used to hold the two hard drive cages, each one taking up three 5.25” bays. These cages can be moved or removed, as we will show later. In its default configuration, the Prominent 9 has three available external 5.25” bays. The Prominent 5 comes with five 5.25” bays, but doesn’t offer the same configuration flexibility.

Figure 3: Front panel

The Prominent 9 comes with two USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA port, and the traditional audio jacks. The Prominent 5 comes with one FireWire port as well, and on this other model these connectors are located on the top panel and protected by a small door.

Figure 4: Buttons and connectors

The Prominent 5 comes with a 120 mm sleeve bearing fan (Nexus D12SL-12, 1,000 rpm, 36.87 cfm, 18 dBA) attached to the bottom hard drive cage. One of the cool things about this fan is that it is attached to the hard drive cage using rubber pegs instead of screws. These rubber pegs will absorb the vibration of the fan and, therefore, reduce the noise level. This fan is attached to a standard peripheral power plug and to a three-pin fan power connector, so you can choose between installing it directly on your power supply or on your motherboard. Since it is attached to one of the hard drive cages, you can move this fan by changing the position of the hard drive cage to where it is attached. You can install an 80 mm, 90 mm, or 120 mm fan to the second hard drive cage, if you want.

Figure 5: Hard drive cages and front fan