Cooler Master CM Force 500 - The First of Its Kind
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Interior Design (Part I)
Interior Design
The steel side panels are held in place with thumbscrews that are easily removed without the need for any tools. Inside, you'll note that there are no removable drive bays for the CM Force 500; fortunately, the installation of the drives is tool-free.
After the removal of the right steel panel (as seen below), we were able to see a single large cut-out on the motherboard tray that will allow us to mount customized CPU coolers. There's also a single cable management cut-out near the top of the CM Force 500. To the left of the large cut-out, there are options for mounting up to two 120mm cooling fans that correspond to the intake vents found on the side panel. This should be ideal to cool your storage array, but do note that it will impede direct access to service those drives; you'll have to remove the fans to gain access again.
Delving deeper into the chassis, we see the bundled 120m cooling fan that sits above the two punch-out holes for water cooling tubes and seven expansion-slot covers. As mentioned earlier, there are no options to mount any cooling fans at the bottom of the casing.
The CM Force 500 boasts of a tool-free installation experience and there are two types of retaining clips for the 3.5- and 5.25-inch drives that would be installed in the chassis. Both types of clips are similar in design but they are not identical. Supplied with the case are two pairs of 3.5-inch retaining clips, and one pair for the 5.25-inch bay variety. There is also a single pair of retaining clips for the external-facing 3.5-inch drive bay.
The front panel is easily removed from the chassis with a quick tug at the bottom of the panel. The plastic drive bay covers can be easily removed by pulling at their retaining tabs; even the wire-mesh, at each side of the panel, can be removed.
After removing the front panel, we can see the cooling options at the front of the CM Force 500; it can support a single 140mm cooling fan or a pair of 120mm ones. This means, you can opt to install front intake fans either in front of the storage bays, or at the side. However, it's probably not a good idea to use them both concurrently at the same height level.
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