Product Outlook: External

The SST-LC10 comes in two colors, silver and black, but we happened to be evaluating the black version today. The front is brushed aluminum and is low on the gaudiness and high on class, which is a dream come true. Note the lack of an external 3.5" drive bay. This may annoy some users, but do you really want a floppy drive showing on this case? We wish that Silverstone would have included a cover for the external USB 2.0 ports you see on the lower left of the case, but it is not a major issue. One of the most important things that you can get from this picture is the fact that this case really wouldn't look out of place in a home theater.

You can't tell from the pictures, but the entire body of the case is rather sturdy. You can easily stack heavy items such as receivers, amplifiers or DVD players on top of this case with no problem. On the
downside, however, it does make this case a bit heavy at 8kg (roughly 17.6 pounds), however you aren't likely to be moving it to LAN parties, so we'll take sturdiness over weight any day of the week for an HTPC case.

Around the corner, to the left, you wil find the audio in and out ports as well as the Firewire (IEEE 1394a) port. Many digital video recorders use Firewire to transfer data to your computer, so we consider it a
requirement that any HTPC case have at least one Firewire port accessible at the front of the case.

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