Cooler Master Storm Trooper Full Tower Case Review

Looking Closer at the CM Storm Trooper

The Trooper is not entirely like Storm cases of the past. All the Storm series cases were mid towers; the Trooper is a full tower. The styling is still the same military feel, but more stealthy than rugged. Unlike the Storm cases of the past, all the plastic bezels of the Trooper are covered with a rubberized skin very similar to BitFenix’s SofTouch.

Like the Storm Series before it, the Trooper has fan and LED controls. This time the fan controller is not a dial style control, rather, up/down buttons that adjust speed in set increments. There is a light bar that shows where you are in the high/low range. Just above the fan controller is the power button. When the system is powered up the CM Storm logo will glow. The rest of the front panel consists of power and hard drive activity lights, audio ports, two USB3 ports, two USB2 ports, eSATA, and reset button.

Up top behind the front controls are the top exhaust vents and carry handle. To me the top vent looks like the vents you would see on the side of some stealth vehicle.

The carry handle has the same rubberized coating as the side panels. It is also separate from the top bezel and attached straight to the case frame. Cooler Master says the handle is rated for 90lbs or 43kg. Take out the 30lbs for the case itself you are left with 65lbs for your system. Thats a lot of system, and at 90lbs total system weight Id be looking for casters — not a handle for long distance hauling.

On the back is a removable filter for the top. This slides out the back of the case and snaps in place.

Just under the front panel is the external 2.5 drive dock that Cooler Master is calling X-Dock. I think it would have been more user friendly if the dock handled 3.5 drives as well.

Under that are nine 5.25 drive bays. Six of those bays are occupied with two hard drive cages that can hold four 2.5″ or 3.5″ drives. Each of the bays has its own removable vented cover with mesh filter.

At the very bottom is a cover plate with the CM Storm logo on it. Behind it is a tool box for spare screws or small parts. This can also be locked into case with a user provided lock.

On the right panel is a vent that lines up with the hard drive cage. There is also a slight bulge in the side panel. This lines up with the main wire routing holes in the motherboard tray to give extra room to run wiring.

The left panel is almost a mirror image, but the bulge on the panel is all vent. The panel can also hold two 120mm fans.

Moving around to the back of the Storm Trooper at the top are 3 pass though holes with grommets. The two larger holes are tubing holes for external mounted water cooling, and the smaller hole is for running wires to external fans. Just below those is the 140mm rear exhaust fan.

In the middle are the expansion slot covers. There are 9 slots for expansion cards and 1 off to the side for the Storm Guard Peripheral lock for locking your headphones, keyboard, and mouse cables to the case.

Looking at the bottom of the case the Storm Trooper is pretty much all vent and split into two sections. The front can accommodate two 120mm fans (with tool box removed), with the filter sliding out of the front. The rear vent is for the power supply intake, and it slides out the rear of the case.