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Installation

To be brutally honest working in a smaller case is fairly unpleasant and the only exception so far is FIC's Condor. Installation in the Aria is not bad but it still left me frustrated at times. Opening up the case is straightforward. Removal of a single screw allows the top to slide out.

The sides of the Aria are released through a tab on each side.

Sliding them toward the front of the case releases them. Like with most SFF systems, the Aria utilizes a drive tray. The Aria's tray is not screwed it, it slides and locks into place and needs to be removed at an angle and should not be able to move with the cover in place.

The drive tray can house up to 3 HDDs and a single optical drive which is usually above the norm for SFF systems although the Soltek Qbic allows for two optical drive bays as well as two HDD bays. The Aria has no provision for a floppy drive as there is no external access. The optical drive bay has two sets of slots; the forward set positions the original drive cover flush along the front of the Aria while the back set will set up the Aria so it can be used with the stealthed drive door.

Installation of the motherboard was a bit on the tricky side. There is very little clearance between the rear I/O panel and the bottom of the powersupply. A slight tilt gets the motherboard jammed up with either the brass risers or the powersupply. It would be a good idea to install the processor and heatsink before mounting the motherboard inside the case. One big advantage of the Aria is the possibility of four expansion cards so it is not as limiting as a SFF based system in that regard.

The inside of the case does get cramped with two rounded cables and wiring is definitely not as clean as SFF solutions where some cables are prerouted.

Closing the box back up was a bit difficult as the top panel proved to be a tight fit.