Hey everyone I'm planning a new desk build and I'm looking into Hot swap bays, I would like to get something of a 3x5.25" bay to 5x3.5" drives. Something like this http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_cages_enclosures/mb455spf.asp but a cheaper version or something. I was only wondering about the noise of the fan and drives, don't they vibrate alot inside a hot swap bay? ~Bladesingerz
I use this unit - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-dock-mb974sp-b-tray-less-4-in-3-sata-3-internal-raid-backplane I get no rattle from the hard drives. The unit has a switch at the front to control the fan (low or high speed). The unit is trayless, so no extraneous pieces to lose. No software is required - I just have to rescan for drives in windows disk management. I'm very happy with it and it's incredibly convenient for installing new hard drives.
Oh that looks like a nice unit, very handy to have the eSata and usb there to! To bad the leds on it are blue, realy like it to be red. So ok is it safe to assume most hot swap bays are quiet? (asuming they are not junk) What about heat? Do you really need the fan on it? I'll have 2 fans near it blowing cool air in.
As far as fan noise goes, you can always swap out the fans. I have three of these units in my fileserver - http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...Drive-Rack-Mount-Kit--EX-H34SX-pid-12049.html Each one comes with a Lian-Li 120mm fan which are pretty quiet to begin with, but I swapped them for Apache Blacks and linked them to one PWM slot on my motherboard. And honestly, sometimes I'm not even sure that the computer is turned on but for the power LED (that's how quiet it is). As far as heat goes, I've never really worried about it. In the IcyDock unit, I've had the fan switched to low for the last year and never worried about the heat. And it's only a 80mm fan to begin with, so I could probably remove it altogether. I only run the 120mm fans on the Lian Li units because they actually double as the air intake for the case.
I know I'm a cheap barstuard but have one of these in my system now for 8 months no problems. Ebay 3.5 SATA HDD-Rom Serial ATA Hard Drive Disk Mobile Rack £7.88. Item number: 140540356747
not a bad price really! But I like to get something fancy for my next build. Got an other question, if you place your HDDs vertical will they break down faster? Since all the pressure of the disk is on 1 side of the bearing (or what ever holds it in the middle)..
