About two weeks ago I started looking for a good way to mount my future solid state hard drives. At work we actually had two 2.5" -> 3.5" conversion brackets that came with two kits that I COULD have used. My problem with these brackets is that even though I can't see them through my see-through side window, they're still hideous. I will still know that I've put two aesthetically unpleasing brackets inside my computer which would make me sad.
2.5" -> 3.5" bracket
Price - Free!!
So began my trek for the perfect way to mount 2.5" notebook hard drives into 3.5" mounting locations.
Next I stumbled onto a forum posting that referred to a manhattan 2x2.5" housing that would fit in one 3.5" drive bay ( Linky ). Now this HAD to be perfect, we are an authorized Manhattan distributor and I could get a great deal on this hard drive, but there was a problem. It had a front plate that would look wonderful on some cases, but on my case it would've been hidden behind a fan, and that's not acceptable.
Manhattan Sata Rack
Price - $35-$40 + shipping
I continued looking for a simple bracket that would fit 2 2.5" hard drives into one 3.5" bay. I wanted as much airflow through my case as possible and I wanted these to fit into my case as tightly as possible. These were two very small drives and they didn't really need to take up two 3.5" slots. It would be irresponsible to take up that much real estate!
Here's where the Startech Sata-bay came into the picture. I decide to do something that was previously unimaginable, a new-egg search. I found the Startech drive which I really wasn't all that excited about since it took up a 5.25" drive bay. Once I found out I could fit FOUR (count it), FOUR 2.5" hard drives in that 5.25" drive bay with smooth aesthetics, FOUR activity lights (more blinky lights is better), and did I mention FOUR hard drives? Now I'm not restricted to two hard drives in this enclosure, I can have FOUR. This is perfect, but holy crap look at that price tag!
Startech Sata Bay
Price - $79.28 shipped (free upgrade to 2nd-day air, thanks newegg!)
To make a long story short, I ordered it monday evening at 5:00 CST and it showed up on that thursday with supposed second day shipping. I was pleased to find that it was well packaged and newegg did a good job with their packing peanuts. I'm sorry that I didn't get any pictures of the unpackaging but trust me, it wasn't that exciting and it was a white box with the Startech logo on it. It came with mounting hardware and four SATA cables.
Upon inspection, I noticed that the hinge design on the front of the cages seemed a little flimsy. I've dealt with server-class drive bays before and I would say that it was a little weaker than the hot swap bays I'm used to in either supermicro or intel designs. This doesn't mean that it doesn't work, just be careful and make sure it snaps down all of the way.
When we move to the back of the unit, you'll notice four SATA connectors, one power connector, and two 40mm cooling fans. The power is supplied through one 4-pin molex (nice!) and there is a data cable for each hard drive. Also on the back there is a jumper to set the fan speed. You can either set the speed to high(loud) or low(nearly silent). If you're mounting solid state drives then you really shouldn't have to worry about heat, and with the amount of air it flows at low, it is definitely overkill. I'd rather have more cooling than want more cooling.
The drive rack fit nicely into its designated 5.25" slot and mounted just as well to. I would like to throw in a caution here. Make sure to use the supplied mounting hardware. They provide very short mounting screws so that they don't interfere with the bays when you mount hard drives to them. Once again, USE THE MOUNTING HARDWARE THEY PROVIDE and you will save yourself some trouble.
All in all the installation went very smoothly and I really don't have any complaints. This product gets two thumbs up.
Installed View
Awesome bit of kit for an ESX whitebox, also now retailing for ~$55 :)
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