Over on the other side we have some tool-less mechanisms to fasten in the 5.25" optical drives. These knobs simply act as screwdrivers - on the other side are the screws. A nice idea to get your optical media fixed in place without the need of a manual screwdriver.
Tool-less installation for optical drives
Just beneath the optical bay we have a cage for installing HDDs. This cage has a hinged door that swings out after pressing a latch in. So within the Hoplite there are 2 areas you can install 3.5" media. In the lower region and behind the 120mm - within the cage pictured.
HDD cage with door
As I showed earlier the Hoplite features 2 slots at the very bottom that are accessible from the outside. These 2 bays here have a docking board. When you push a drive into one of the slots it will connect with SATA ports. On the opposite side to this we have a PCB with those SATA ports for hooking up to the motherboard. Basically this is a much cleaner approach. It keeps the cables nice and tidy and makes installing drives very simple and hassle free. On this PCB we also have 2 x 3-pin fan headers. One of these is already taken up by the front 120mm fan but it means you can extend the amount of case fans within the Hoplite which I think its a fantastic idea. This entire panel of functionality is powered by a standard PSU molex connector.
A PCB with SATA and case fan functions
