Fractal Design ERA ITX Chassis Review

A Closer Look at the Inside

The left and right doors just pull outwards from the top and lift off the bottom to remove, no tools needed.

The studs are a permanent part of the door and snap into the main chassis at the top.

The top is somewhat spring loaded and not an issue but the bottom of the door use rubber washers to absorb any sort of vibration to keep the ERA quiet.

There are several studs on the inside of the panels that the included dust filter snaps on to. The filter itself is plastic so it can be washed and re-used.

With the doors off, the inside of the ERA is very busy. There are brackets everywhere and a pretty good pile of cables for such a small case.

The first bracket you’ll need to move holds one 3.5” drive with vibration dampening or a pair of 2.5” drives natively. If you are willing to get a little creative with double-sided tape or similar, there is room for several more 2.5” drives on this bracket.

With the drive bracket out of the way, and the cables moved, you get a look at the rest of the pre-installed brackets. Two PSU mounts and another drive bracket make up these options.

The internal bracket holds yet again, one 3.5” drive on vibration absorbers or two 2.5” drives. The power supply brackets can be moved up or down to several different positions to help accommodate different hardware combinations.

The ERA case comes with both power supply mounting brackets, one for ATX, and one for SFX or SFX-L units.

The top frame easily pops out for access to mounting locations for fans or a cooler, as well as washing the built-in fan filter.

The rear power inlet is hardwired to an internal extension cable and routed towards the front of the case. It ends in a matching low-profile, right-angle plug. Since 80mm fans are not as common as they once were, Fractal includes one pre-installed on the rear panel for a bit of additional ventilation.

The front-rear corner of the motherboard tray has a Fractal branded Velcro wrap pre-installed for cable management.

For front panel wiring, you get a USB 3 and USB Type-C connectors.

The USB Type-C front panel header uses a very thin cable and a small plug. With many boards having this plug pointed out rather than towards and edge, this makes sure your cable doesn’t interfere with other components like coolers.

Standard audio, and Power switch and LED plugs round out the front panel I/O.