Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
The front of the case first presents an all-aluminum locking door. Don’t let its simple looks deceive you. The front door features a power button, but the button can be easily disabled with a locking mechanism on the backside of the door. Disabling the power button can prevent an unwanted shutdown in more secure environments. Move the slide to enable or disable the power button.
The front door’s locking mechanism is a simple HEX style key.
Once the front door is open, the DS380 welcomes you to all things storage. There are eight removable drive trays, two USB 3.0 ports, audio connection, and a pair of LEDs.
The removable drive trays are forged from a single piece of injection molded plastic. The retention mechanism is quite simple and the front of the drive tray is designed to allow the user to label each drive with a provided adhesive label. To release a drive, just squeeze the two sides and pull.
The right side of the drive tray has an LED for activity/power. You can install either a 3.5″ or 2.5″ hard drive. The third drive tray from the top can be removed and blocked off for the installation of video cards up to 11″ long. Not sure why you would need one in a NAS, but at least overkill is an option here. I certainly like the ability to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
The top of the DS380 has a filtered intake for your SFX power supply unit. The filter is magnetic, flexible, and fits flush with the case. The fan filter does an excellent job of keeping unwanted debris from getting inside.
The left side is home to two of the three installed 120mm cooling fans. The fans are placed behind another magnetic fan filter. The magnetic fan filter here on the DS380 is a welcome departure from the removable fan filter we found the Grandia GD08. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it on the GD08, I just like this magnetic option better. In the interest of consistency, I would have rather had this filter made similar to that of the one on top (or vice versa).
The right side is barren, but remains the only removable panel on the case. The panel is held in place with two regular Philips head screws. I would have preferred if SilverStone had used some thumb screws.
The back of the case is home to the top mounted SFX power supply, the third 120mm (SilverStone 1200RPM) exhaust fan, and the I/O cutout. There are two expansion slots for things like RAID cards and SAS expanders.
