Assembly

Installing the mainboard is done quickly as you simply secure the board on the little "pyramids" of the mainboard tray. Since the chassis is quite compact, you will have to watch out that your graphics card does not exceed roughly 300 mm in length, but there is plenty of space for the large CPU cooler as long as you don't place a fan in the top spot of the side panel.


Installing the hard drive means prepping the trays first. They ship bare, so that you need to apply the rubber rings first, then place the drive in the tray and secure it with the special screws. Both 3.5 and 2.5 inch drives do still require you to use tools to put them in place.


Once done you can slide the unit back into place, which requires a lot of force. Best way to do it, seems to pull the middle portion of the tray so the edges collapse a bit. Upside is - of course - that you won't have to worry about the drives during transportation.


Installing the optical drive is extremely easy and does not require any tools. Simply remove the cover of your choice, slide the drive in and push the neon green pins down. This holds the entire drive well enough.


The power supply is placed within the BUC 101 by the usual means. Put it in place, screw it down and you are good to go. Nothing to see here - keep on moving!


Once everything is installed, the case makes a clean impression. I was able to route and hide the cables nicely but you will have to invest quite a bit of work when filling this compact chassis to the rim. Having used smaller parts when reviewing the In Win BUC, the use of two long graphics cards and a large cooler really show the difference in cables and crowding within the BUC 101, which uses the same case frame as the original.

Finished Looks

Once everything is in place, the BUC 101 makes a pretty cool impression. A big reason for that are the two large light strips in the front of the chassis. The one for power lights up blue, while the HDD activity strip will light up orange on the opposite side of the chassis.


3.5 or 2.5 inch SATA drives will fit easily within the top bay. Thanks to the foam lining, no vibrations are passed unto the chassis and the drive stays in place nicely.


One can clearly see the white fan through the side panel. As you can see, there is very little space between the cooler and the panel. Everything is where you would expect to find it when viewing the fully assembled system from the rear.