Test System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done with the use of spacers and screws. As there are no drive bays in front, you have plenty of space for long GPUs. Fractal Design mentions 315mm should you still want to install cooling elements into the front.


To install a 3.5" drive, take your pick of the two trays within the Define Nano S. Simply take it out of the chassis after removing the thumbscrew that holds it in place. Fractal Design has placed rubber spacers on these and supplies special screws to secure the drives. Once the storage unit is in place, simply put the tray back in place and screw down the thumbscrew.


Adding 2.5" drives is done in a similar fashion - simply utilize the piece behind the motherboard tray. Remove it from the chassis, screw the drive on, and put it back into place. Fractal Design mentions that drives that are up to 13mm thick will fit behind the motherboard tray, which is more than enough.


The PSU's installation with the use of black screws is quite traditional. However, due to the chassis being as compact as it is, you will need to install it before adding a graphics card as it is quite the tight fit. The downside here is that the PSU will keep the graphics card's fans from drawing the utmost of fresh air in. Their radial fan at the end of the card, only AMD's and NVIDIA's reference designs will work well.


Once everything is installed, the Fractal Define Nano S still makes for a really clean build. Thanks to the slightly offset front of the motherboard tray, all unwanted cables are hidden. With the storage drives out of sight, you are also only able to see the parts that really count.

Finished Looks

With the side panels in place, the window further focuses your view on the motherboard, memory, and GPU area. A blue LED turns on as soon as the system has been powered up to let you know that it is up and running.


Taking a closer look at the side, you can still see a little bit of the PSU's label, which distracts slightly from the experience; however, everything else is really nice and clean. You will love that window if you end up building a liquid-cooling system for potent hardware around the Define Nano S. In the rear, everything is where you would expect it to be.