Case design has been dominated by now-irrelevant technologies for too long, argues James Gorbold
Back in the early 1990s, a CD-ROM drive was the hot upgrade for any budding PC enthusiast, opening the door to a new era of games with vastly improved graphics, audio and full motion video. Of course, that was assuming that you could stump up the huge purchase price, with first-generation drives retailing for several hundred pounds. Finally, a good 25 years later it looks as if not only CDs, but also DVDs and Blu-rays, may be going the way of the dodo.
This trend started quite a few years ago, with content delivery systems such as Good Old Games and Steam proving that PC enthusiasts weren’t wedded to the idea of owning physical copies of their games. Meanwhile, services such as iTunes and Spotify have proved that high-quality audio downloads and streaming are a compelling alternative to audio CDs and Internet piracy.
More recently, services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix and NowTV have made video streaming a viable alternative to watching TV and films on DVD or Blu-ray. In fact, the last time I used the optical drive in my PC was to install Windows more than three years ago, while my collection of DVDs and Blu-rays is still sitting in boxes, waiting to be unpacked, more than a year after I moved house.
Despite this changing consumer behaviour, it’s taken case manufacturers a long time to realise that support for an optical drive, let alone multiple drives, isn’t a top priority for PC enthusiasts when choosing their next case. For instance, the five most popular cases of this time last year – the Corsair 200R, 300R, Air 540, Fractal Design Define R4 and Cooler Master HAF XB – had an average of two and a half 5.25in drive bays.
And because 5.25in drive bays take up so much space on the front of the case, and so much volume inside the case, the end result is cases that give far too much prominence to a feature that few PC enthusiasts value or use.
Fortunately, after dragging their collective heels for several years, case manufacturers are starting to wake up to the lack of desire for 5.25in drive bays. Rather surprisingly, this charge hasn’t been led by previous innovators in case design, such as SilverStone and Corsair, but by companies such as NZXT with designs such as the Source 340, In Win with its 904 and more recently, Fractal Design with its Define S.
By ditching support for 5.25in drives, the three aforementioned cases move chassis design forwards in a notable way. The benefits of this new school of case design are significant, ranging from minimalist front panels, improved airflow, more space and flexibility for water-cooling systems (assuming they don’t use a 5.25in reservoir) or simply a reduced overall volume. There should be a cost benefit too, as the cases will require less complex tooling to manufacture the drive cages and front panels.
With Computex just round the corner, I’m hoping to see more cases without 5.25in drive bays, as its high time to say goodbye to the 1990s-era optical drive. After all, it’s been 25 years since the introduction of the first PC optical drives, while the 5.25in drive bay can trace its ancestry back to the IBM 5150 in 1981. Hopefully, we’ll also see some more interestingly shaped cases too, as there’s no need to locate the 3.5 and 2.5in drive bays at the front of the case either.