StarTech StarTech.com 5.25 To 3.5 Hard Drive Hot Swap Bay - For 3.5" SATA/SAS Drives - Trayless - Aluminum

Used these in my last 2 office builds.......not one problem ever

I got this single bay disk bay because I needed 5 drives. I bought the star tech one specifically because I had a 4 bay version and wanted it to match. Was pretty disappointed that the LED is on the opposite side on this one. I also ran into a problem trying to fit a WD RED drive in here. The drive does not have a flat back and has some little pockets. The drive removal finger in the back of this bay lines up with one of those pockets to where you can not put the drive in as it gets hung up. I had to use a screwdriver to push the finger back and then only open the door as far as I needed to slip the drive in past it for the drive to miss getting caught on the finger.

Worked perfectly with my SFF server

I bought this item primarily as a fast way to access my Hard Drives for Backup purposes. I Clone my Windows OS Hard Drive every ~2 weeks (& Image less frequently) & occasionally "Test-Restore" a recent Image to one of my bare (unallocated/clean) spare Hard Drives. I've had 2 SATA Racks installed in my PC since I bought my Desktop PC ~12 years ago. I use the 2nd Rack for my 2nd Hard Drive non-OS files, mainly Photo Albums, etc and as my "Target Hard Drive" Cloning Rack. These Racks are a real time-saver for such Backup activities as they allow fast access & eliminate the necessity of accessing the internal chassis of a Desktop PC to swap out a Hard Drive. I bought this Rack to replace another brand's Rack after my original Rack's Door broke after ~10-11 years of constant usage. I've tried a couple other brand's Racks without satisfaction due to their Door Mechanism's being too hard on the plastic Door's Eject action (too stiff, causing more stress on the plastic Doors). One of the alternate brand's Racks broke 2 weeks after I installed it (Door broke). This item's Door Eject mechanical action is very smooth, thus greatly reducing mechanical stress on the Door Assembly. The only critique is one that's been mentioned in other reviews : the Power On/Off Switch is located in the rear of the Rack so there's no way to access it without going into the PC's chassis. For me though, it's not an issue as I'm not using these Racks as "Hot Swap" racks as my BIOS isn't set up for "AHCI". I rate this basically a 5-Star purchase with one exception in the "Sturdiness" category as I've only had this item for a few weeks & only time will answer that question but I anticipate getting years of trouble-free use from this item.

I recently built a new system and one of the requirements was a "Hot Swap" bay so that I can swap in a drive temporarily for a project, or put a backup drive in the bay, make the backup, then remove the backup drive. My old case (a Thermaltake MK1 Cruiser) had a hot swap drive bay built into the top of the case, and it has been used extensively, as that hot swap drive bay has been used to make backups - insert the first 14 TB drive, start the "A" part of the backup, remove the first drive and insert the second 14 TB drive, start the "B" part of the backup, etc. That process has worked extremely well over years and I was very disappointed to not be able to find a case with a built-in hot swap drive bay. I found a case that has two 5.25" external drive bays (Thermaltake Core V71) and bought the StarTek Trayless Hard Drive Hot Swap Bay for one of the two 5.25" external drive bays. Before I continue, I should pass along some reminders regarding "Hot Swap" and Windows and drive letters. First, generally you need to go into the motherboard BIOS settings and enable "Hot Swap". In my experience every BIOS likes to call the setting something different, so read your BIOS manual until you find it. Also, sometimes it is a "SATA" setting, sometimes it is a PCI-E setting, so read the BIOS manual cover to cover. Second, in Windows 10 (I'm avoiding Windows 11) you will need to enable "Hot Swap" in Device manager. As Microsoft like to change things, and if I provide instructions today, Microsoft will change things by tomorrow, I'm just going to suggest you do a search for the "current" way to enable "Hot Swap" on a drive. Third, in Windows Microsoft likes to put "Hot Swap" devices in the list of drive letters depending upon which other devices exist. For example, all of my M.2 SSDs have low letters (C, E, F), and my mechanical 14 TB hard drive started out as drive "G", but I had to move it to "L" because when I plugged in a USB flash drive, or a camera's flash memory card, or inserted a hard drive into the "Hot Swap" drive bay, Windows decided to "change" the drive letter assigned to the 14 TB hard drive and put the USB flash drive, or memory card, or "Hot Swap" drive bay's drive where the 14 TB hard drive was, and give it a new drive letter like "H" or "J" or ... The net result was that the 14 TB internal hard drive became drive "L" (for now) and Windows assigns whatever it wants to the drive letters G, H, I, J, and K. What I'll probably do is assign a new drive letter to the 14 TB drive (which started out as "G", then became "L", and will probably end up as "S" or something like that). Thus, a word of caution... Make sure there are PLENTY of drive letters left unused between where Windows decides it wants to place your USB Flash drives, camera memory cards, and the "Hot Swap" drive when inserted into the dock, so that you don't have "drive letter chaos" where a program using your "G" drive suddenly finds "G" points to a different drive that doesn't have the directory tree structure and files it expects (been there, got clobbered by that). Just to be clear, the StarTech Hot Swap drive bay WORKS GREAT! if you have any problems it will probably be with how Windows assigns drive letters.