Introduction

The one bad thing about LANs, that I'm sure all of us can agree on, is getting your PC and monitor there and back. It's usually a huge unorganized pain. Once you get there and setup, following many hours of fragging, the one thing left to do is pack up and come back home. After a few times doing this, unless there was some awesome fragging, it's almost not worth going through having to get up there and get back. Some companies have started to recognize this and are coming out with solutions. One being a small PC, something light you can carry in with one hand, or even put in a bag. Another solution, from XBags are the CTSS and MTSS, which are the Case Transport Strapping System and Monitor Transport Strapping System. The concept is to have a harness, which straps on to your monitor and case to make them much easier to transport. Lets see what these bad boys can do...

The CTSS

The Package

Out of the box

The pockets

A basic description of what you get from the CTSS product page:

"... the CTSS was overbuilt to keep your PC secure and safe. It boasts 2 large pockets, one can easily handle practically all keyboard sizes, in addition to cables, your mouse, mousepad with ease. Both pockets are padded so that you not need worry about more parts coming out than originally went in. It also boasts front and rear compression straps so you won't need to worry about your PC case sliding out in transport.

Included with the CTSS, is a padded shoulder strap, with half inch padding just where you need it, and spring loaded cast aircraft aluminum carabiners which fasten to the CTSS in 2 of 4 points, so no matter what side you'll be carrying it on, you'll be doing so with comfort and ease. The compression straps and carrying handle all fasten with industrial strength Velcro© which is sure to keep things in place under the most stressful of times."

Setup

Put case in center of harness

Connect top and tighten side straps

When taking it out of the box, it looked as if getting this thing setup would be complicated. However, at further inspection it became quite clear, as you can see in the pictures above.

All saddled up

Fits snug

VH Case Badge :p

It fits in there quite nice and securely. Very good and effective design.

Usage

With strap

Another angle

It also comes with a shoulder strap, connect that and you're ready to LAN. The shoulder strap makes it so that unless the case is too heavy for your shoulder you can use only your shoulder to carry it. This allows your hands to be free to carry other things, or just so that your arm isn't strained after carrying it for a while. You need to save that energy for the fragging!

The Bottom

The bottom features a padded area with some rubber feet. Why this is here I don't know.

Nice fit

Lots of room

As for the pockets, they do support a full sized keyboard and the smaller one even has enough room for the new Ratpadz. Enough room for a big LAN? No, but if there was it would start weighing the whole thing down. For small LANs, there will most likely be enough room for the necessities, depending on exactly what yours are.

So far perfect, too good to be true eh? Yeah, it is. The one major problem I had with the CTSS is the fact it was too small for my case. The case in the pictures isn't my PC (thank god :p). The case I use is the mid-sized Cheiftech/Chenming/Antec, possibly the most popular case for us DIYers. The fact that the regular sized CTSS didn't fit my Antec SX-800 was a big disappointment, and surprise as well. There is a CTSSL for larger cases, but I consider that case to be a mid sized. This problem is more of a confusion, not a real problem, though I do think that it should be able to support cases even bigger than mine. If you decide to order, measure your case first and make sure that it's less than approximately 52 1/2" around to avoid any confusion, if you have the same case as me, better go with the CTSS.

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