Internal Appearance
Removing the side panel, we delve inside the P180 and get a first glimpse of the unusual layout. With the PSU located at the bottom of the chassis it should, in theory, result in a lot of room to work with the components. However, it doesn't seem to work like that.
The P180 features a moulded plastic box covering where the graphic card(s) and other such cards will reside in a fully-built system. The box itself is affixed to the chassis using two screws on the inside and four on the back panel. It would be OK if these were run-of-the-mill thumbscrews, but they're actually normal screws that require quite a small screwdriver to remove.
Once removed there is the option to mount an 80mm fan into the housing that will exhaust the graphics-card heat directly out of the chassis through its own dedicated vent. Whilst it also functions as the 5.25” drive-bay rail-holder, it would have been better if it was easier to both remove and fit. It’s a great idea, we feel, but seeing as there is no slide-out motherboard tray on the P180, it does make gaining access to the chassis a real chore when utilising the cooler module.
The drive-bay system on the P180 is split into two caddies; the bottom one is able to take four 3.5” drives mounted on the rubber mounts, vertically, and the top one can take a further two drives in slide-out trays. The design of the caddies allows you to fit/remove them by simply pulling on the fitted ring-pull.
When the caddies are removed you can mount a 120mm fan behind each to cool your drives, but there is only space for standard-sized fans, not the ones that ship with the P180, but more on that later.