Antec Performance One

Inside the P160

The P160 provides us with a few surprises inside, not that we're surprised anyway with any of the great features that Antec provides in many of its products. One of the main areas packed with features is the front end of the case.

There are three types of drive bays in the front section. The top 5-1/4" drive bays do not have screw holes, but use drive rails only. The first set of 3-1/2" drive bays, however, does not use drive rails, but Antec has holes drilled to allow standard screw installation. To install drives in either of these bays, we need to remove the front bezel by pulling it off from the bottom, as many other cases allow, and slide in the drives with attached rails through the front.

The bottom set of drive bays are for hard drives only. As we can see from the picture, there are four slide-out drive-trays with rubber grommets, which will help cushion the drives as well as allow us to secure them to the trays by screwing them in from the bottom. The trays are slightly wider than any 3-1/2" hard drive, so there is no chance of scratching the sides of the drives.

We also notice how much space is left over at the bottom of this drive cage. It seems like wasted space and could have easily allowed an extra drive to be installed.

From the 5-1/4" drive bays, specifically at the height of the third bay from the top, there is an aluminum support bar that extends all the way to the back of the chassis just below the power supply mounting area. It is obvious from the power supply cutout at the back of the case that there is much more room between the power supply and the roof of the case. We shouldn't have any trouble installing the PowerStream unit into the P160.

Down at the bottom of the backside of the P160, we see seven expansion slots with steel covers on them. The covers are secured to the slots by thumbscrews, which carry the tool-less design.