External Appearance 1
The Advance A320 is a lovely case and has some great features. The front of the case has a 7mm acrylic front which adds a nice glossy finish. I found it a little unusual that the drive blanks didn’t follow the trend of having acrylic mounted over the top like similar cases. I actually like this idea since devices such as the new Cooler Master Aerogate fan controllers don’t look out of place since the acrylic front matches the acrylic surround. The edge’s of the acrylic are highly polished and show very little traces of machine cuts. Holding the 7mm acrylic front in place are 6 large decorative screws that add a very industrial look to the case.
Most cases these days seem to have 4 x 5¼ inch and 2 x 3½ inch drive bays. The Advance A320 follows this trend and also has space for 5 x 3½ inch internal devices. Plenty of space for that lovely Terabyte RAID array!!!
Along side the 2 x 3½ inch external drive bays are the front expansion ports and power/reset buttons. The front expansion ports are on the left hand side of the case. The ports available are 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x firewire and headphone/microphone ports. These front expansion port’s are amazingly useful and are even making an appearance on the smaller cases such as the Shuttle SFF PC’s. On the right hand side of the case are the power/reset buttons and power/HD activity LED’s. The button’s have a definite click to them when they are pressed and feel pretty solid. The HD activity and power LED’s are set into the acrylic front which means when they are lit the glow is diffused through the acrylic giving a unique look. The HD activity LED is illuminated in yellow and the power LED is a rather stunning vivid blue colour.
At the very bottom of the acrylic front are a series of holes to allow cool air to enter the case. These holes are also faintly illuminated by the power and HD activity LED’s. There is also a small vent underneath the case that aid’s in ducting cool air up into the case.
I personally think the overall appearance of the front of the case is very attractive, with the shiny acrylic front and painted drive bays. One area that causes concerns is the lack of vents for the 80mm or 120mm case fan behind the acrylic front.