StarTech.com 2.5in SATA Removable Hard Drive Bay For PC Expansion Slot

I used this for my old computer case to make and unraid server. Tired of opening the case every time i needed to add a drive, I used two of these to make all the data drives accessible from the exterior. Build quality is very good, though the front of the enclosure barely fits into the case as there is a lip on the bottom of the units. The fan is just barely loud on its full setting, but luckily can be quieted a bit with the switch on the unit. It seems that no matter the position of the HDD light switch on the back of the unit, the LEDs stay on for all the drives. Small inconvenience, but ok. Overall would order again!

Would be great if the fans were not so poor quality.

This unit fit perfectly into my case . Slid right in. It is brushed aluminum, I think -- it looks good, anyway. The front lights up for each bay that you are using. The bays have a lip or ledge that you can use to line up the hard drive as you push it into the power and data slots. It couldn't5 be easier. Well made and well designed! I can't tell how well the locks would stand up to a thief, but they do work. I am very happy with this hot swap bay.

Very handy if you need to swop drive frequently. I have one drive with Windows and one with Ubuntu which I swop several times a week. (This is my second caddy) one thing to watch is that it’s been designed to take the older mechanical drives. If you use a modern slim SSD the pins and socket can be misaligned. I use a spacer I 3d printed (see photo). I believe you can buy them on the internet or there’s a stl file on Thingiverse. It’s not a problem if the caddy is mounted horizontally as gravity does the job, well in one orientation anyway. Brill little unit.

A good cheap solution for building your own servers or NAS. Fits anywhere you've got 3 5.25" bays free. The drive-side SATA connectors can accept either standard SATA drives or drives with the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) connector. My one gripe is that the super bright blue LEDs are extremely distracting (a problem with all of StarTech's drive bays, I find). I ended up having to remove the surface mount resistors that control the blue legs of the LEDs, so only the red side lights, but other than that, they're excellent low cost solution for people building their own home server, or for IT crews on a shoestring budget. I've installed two of them in my home server for a 7 drive+1 spare RAID-5 array.