Installing Optical Drives

Another personal rule of thumb is installing the drives first before working on the wiring or installing any additional equipment like graphics cards. This gives you more room to work without the cables or expansion cards getting in your way.

NZXT incorporated a screw-less mounting system, which allows you to add or remove drives without using any tools. To install optical drive, you have to remove the front cover. This is easily done as it is only held by spring clips. After removing the front cover, simply push to the side and lift out the cover of the bay in which you want to install your optical drive.

Then, turn the thumbwheel from “close” to “open” and remove the fastener assembly. NZXT also includes adapters for older 3.5 inch floppy drives. We had no floppy drives at hand (they are obsolete!) but if you still have one, the adaptors allow you to install them into the Tempest.

Slide the drive into the case and simply reinstall the fastener and turn the thumbwheel to “close”. Repeat this procedure for as many drives as you wish to install. The Tempest allows up to 3 optical drives to be installed. Simple, isn't it? It actually took me longer to type this than to install the drive.

Installing Hard Drives

The Tempest case comes with a total of 8 hard drive bays, arranged in 2 banks of 4 bays. Each bank has its own 120 mm fan which draws cool air from the front of the case. These bays can be removed to allow mounting of other devices such as liquid cooling equipment.

To install a hard drive, simply push in the release tab and pull the bracket out for the left and right sides. Then align them on the correct side (they are marked) of the hard drive and simply snap the drive in place.

Repeat that procedure for as many hard drives as you wish. Its installation is even simpler than installing the optical drives. Now, let's move on to the cables and power supply connections.

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