Zalman HD-160 and Accompanying Products

HD-160 Case - Interior (cont'd)

To take a closer look at the HD-160, we removed components and examined them individually. First, here's a picture of the multi-card reader/port pieces, which (thankfully) uses standard USB connections and is mounted sturdily by several bolts.

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The cage itself that was removed to get this picture is pretty standard, which like many other HTPC cases has to be completely removed to install drives, unfortunately. One nice feature is the use of soft rubber grommets to absorb vibrations from the installed hard drive on top.

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The new Zalman case's method of stealthing the optical drive is to replace the drive tray's bezel with an included black aluminum piece, and while the fit is pretty good and the end result can be great looking, the double-sided adhesive tape doesn't always guarantee a perfect mount and could be problematic if not attached perfectly the first time.

With the top of the other hard drive mounting unit removed, we can see how these drives are held in place.

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The six visible metal pins serve to anchor one side of the drive, while foam pads still get the majority of the pressure from the mount to help control noise. The top of the cage uses the same grommets mentioned before, and after the drive is bolted to the top piece, the entire unit simply screws down at the four slightly recessed corners that are visible here. Besides the somewhat tricky task of lining up the two screws on the front side of the cage (we found the use of a magnetic screwdriver imperative), the installation is on par with other HTPC designs, and ultimately, the slight difficulty of installation is offset by the low operating noise and good cooling performance of the design.

The installation of the power supply is quite similar to other designs that we've looked at before, with a separate plate first attaching to the supply, which then screws into the case. The plate itself is symmetrical with respect to the case's mounting points, so any compatible power supply can be turned either direction in the HD-160.

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Something rather interesting about the installation instructions of the HD-160 is the fact that they suggest a different orientation of their own power supply, the ZM460-APS, than they suggest for other supplies. The instructions have the supply's large intake fan oriented towards the side vents, most likely due to the fact that often the ZM460-APS is able to keep its fan still or barely rotating, and if it was pointed towards the inside of the chassis, warm air could be drawn through the supply into the case.

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One more soft pad is used again to help dampen possible vibrations, this time from the fan in the power supply. Also worth mentioning is that the whole power supply unit area is nice and spacious, and should work fine even with larger units.

Before getting to the details of the rest of the installation process, it should be noted that Zalman includes a versatile molex adapter with the case that allows the user to run the two rear exhaust fans at either 5v or 12v, depending on the desired cooling performance/noise level. Little inclusions like this are certainly welcome additions to any higher-end chassis; it's always nice to have options.