Ball-Bearing vs Concealed Drawer Slides: Buying Guide 2026
Roller, ball-bearing or concealed soft-close slides? We compare extension, 10–45 kg load ratings, 1D/2D adjustment and prices in the Téchne hardware shop.
You can recognise a good drawer with your eyes closed: it glides smoothly, never jams, never rattles, and closes itself over the last few centimetres. All of that comes from a single piece of hardware — the drawer slide. The Téchne slide collection now covers every family that matters: roller slides, ball-bearing slides and concealed (undermount) slides. This guide shows you exactly when to choose each.
The three slide families
- Roller slides are the budget option: two rails with plastic rollers, side mounted. Fine for light, occasionally used drawers — utility units, storage rooms, workshop furniture. The collection carries them in lengths from 250 to 550 mm.
- Ball-bearing slides are the workhorse of modern furniture: two or three telescopic steel profiles with steel balls running between them. Side mounted, precise, and able to carry serious weight. They are visible when the drawer is open — a minor aesthetic trade-off for an excellent price/performance ratio.
- Concealed (undermount) slides mount under the drawer bottom, completely invisible: an open drawer shows nothing but wood, premium-furniture style. The models in the Téchne collection come with integrated soft-close and fine adjustment for front alignment.
Partial or full extension
The second big decision: how far the drawer travels out of the cabinet.
- Partial extension leaves the last section of the drawer inside — enough for desk or clothes drawers, where you rarely dig to the very back. The upside is the lower price.
- Full extension brings the drawer all the way out, back panel included — a must for deep kitchen drawers, under-counter units and anywhere you want the whole contents visible at a glance.
Load capacity: from 10 to 45 kg
The slides in the collection carry clear load ratings, and the spread is wide:
- 10 kg — compact partial-extension ball-bearing slides (NB17 series): small drawers, stationery, accessories.
- 25 kg — concealed soft-close slides (NU04 and NU30 series): comfortably covers wardrobe and bedroom drawers.
- 35–45 kg — full-extension ball-bearing slides (NB55 and NB58 series, the latter with soft-close): wide, deep drawers, pots, tools, pantry stock.
Rule of thumb: estimate the weight of the drawer full, not empty, and keep a margin — a kitchen drawer loaded with cookware easily passes 20 kg.
Soft-close: the comfort you can hear
Damped closing catches the drawer over the last few centimetres and settles it gently, however energetically it was pushed. On the concealed slides in the collection, soft-close is standard; on ball-bearing slides, pick the damped series (NB58) for bedrooms and any furniture used daily. You can hear the difference — or rather, you can't hear anything at all.
1D or 2D adjustment — the detail that aligns your fronts
Concealed slides add one more criterion: post-installation adjustment. 1D adjustment versions allow tuning in one direction (height), while 2D adjustment versions add lateral tuning too. When a drawer front has to sit perfectly in line with its neighbours, that extra millimetre of side adjustment saves a lot of remounting. It's also why the 2D versions sit at the top of the collection's range.
The right length
The slides in the collection span 250 to 700 mm. Choose length by the cabinet's usable depth: the slide should be slightly shorter than the interior, and with full extension the slide length equals the drawer's travel. Prices start around 5 lei for the simple roller and ball-bearing versions and climb towards 85 lei for concealed slides with 2D adjustment — so even a project with many drawers stays affordable.
What about configured furniture?
If you build your furniture in the Téchne configurator, there's nothing to choose here: drawers arrive factory-fitted with correctly sized slides, included in the displayed price. The shop collection is for your DIY projects, replacements and existing furniture that deserves a better glide. And if you're still deciding between drawers and other storage, read our drawers-versus-doors sideboard comparison too.
The right slide takes 5 minutes to choose with the criteria above — and you'll feel it every day, at every opening, for years.