Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Edition Case

Moving Inside

With the side off the Sniper we can get a good overall look at the inside. There is ample room inside the Sniper so fitting even the biggest video cards on the market should not be an issue. To help take out the guess work as to where the motherboard mount post should go Cooler Master has a paper cheat sheet taped in place.

Looking to the front of the Sniper we can see the drive cages. There is room for five 5.25 drives and five 3.5 drives. All of the Sniper’s drive cages are tool-less, and all the drive rails are fixed, so no worries about losing them. To lock the drive in place you just push the button until it clicks and the rail extends posts into the drive. There are no locking rails on the right, but you can add in drive screws if you want.

The hard drive trays are tool-less as well. The trays clip into place with a cam lock. Each tray has four rubber isolated mount posts that hold the drive and absorb drive vibrations. For the belt and suspender types out there, there is also a place for you to add in drive screws. If you dont have a need for this many drive bays this whole cage can be removed from the case.

Here is a closer look at the hard drive mount posts.

Looking to the back and top of the Sniper we can see the rear 120mm fan and water cooling tube pass through grommets.

Just below that we have the tool-less expansion card retention system. We can also see the peripheral security retention bracket, called StormGuard. Looping the cables for your mouse, keyboard, and head phones though this will slow down the less than upstanding attendees of a LAN party from walking off with your stuff.

In the bottom of the case we have the PSU mount area and a space for a lower 120mm or 140mm fan. The 140mm will snap in place and the 120mm will require removal of the bottom panel to gain access to the mount screws.

At the top of the case we have the top 200mm fan. This can be swapped out for two 120mm fans or 120x240mm radiator.

Up and to the front we can get a glimpse of the front panel wiring crammed in behind the bezel.

The top panel of the Sniper just snaps into place. The tabs feel fairly strong, but its still a plastic tab. So taking this off and on a lot may not be a good idea. It does have to come off in order to get to the fan mount screws. Now, you water cooling guys are wondering if you can get a radiator in this space. I doubt it; there is only about an inch of clearance.

Moving around to the right side of the case we can see the back of the motherboard tray and the drive cages. There are plenty of places to route wires and hide cable.

I almost forgot the side panel. On the inside of the side panel are mounting holes for either another 200mm fan or a pair of 120mm fans. Cooler Master also states in the manual that doing this will limit your head room for your CPU cooler. The manual also says that the cooler must not exceed 7 inches in height. Thats a tall cooler — the Cooler Master V8 is 6.3 inches tall and its the tallest I have used to date. What they dont say in the manual is if that 7 inch dimension is without the side fans or without.