Hot Swap Bay Enclosures

[yeti]

Hi guys,

I recently bought the Corsair 600T and am now looking for hot swappable drive bays/enclosures for the 5.25" bays.

I've come across the ICY DOCK MB973SP-B (fits 3x3.5" in 2x5.25" bays) but I am not sure about the compatibility of this enclosure for my case. Is there a better hot swap solution/product in the market or does anyone know if these are compatible?

Any help/insight would be apprecated! Thanks!

 

[stroebs]

Generally it is compatible if you have 2x5.25" bays available. There aren't any further compatibility issues unless you have a door on your case then you would have to look for any knobs sticking out.

 

[Cruelty]

IME, hot swapping SATA-connected devices isn't stable. Even with controllers that officially support it and backplanes that officially support it, problems occur.

If you NEED hot-swappability, I suggest you look at a USB enclosure

 

[yeti]

Thanks for your input Cruelty, in my experience with external USB docks (reads: not enclosures), the hdd gets extremely hot rather quickly. Im looking for a more permanent solution whereby a bay may be occupied by the same hdd tenant for an extended period of time- without enduring scorching temperatures. I have several external hdd enclosures w/ USB 2.0 & eSATA interfaces, but it is rather tedious to 'swop' devices - and they still endure much higher operating temperatures. Can you possibly make some suggestions as to the periphery to which you are referring? That would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Cruelty]

Thanks for your input Cruelty, in my experience with external USB docks (reads: not enclosures), the hdd gets extremely hot rather quickly. Im looking for a more permanent solution whereby a bay may be occupied by the same hdd tenant for an extended period of time- without enduring scorching temperatures. I have several external hdd enclosures w/ USB 2.0 & eSATA interfaces, but it is rather tedious to 'swop' devices - and they still endure much higher operating temperatures. Can you possibly make some suggestions as to the periphery to which you are referring? That would be greatly appreciated!

Does this mean the drives will be in the machine for a while (days / weeks) ? If so then you can consider the SATA bays if you're prepared to shutdown inbetween drive swaps.

The problems I have encountered with hot-swap SATA all revolve around the swapping of the device. The least worrying problem I had was that drives were recognised correctly if the machine is powered on with the drive attached, but not if you swap the drive while the machine is on. More worrying were the system lock-ups / freezes that occurred when swapping drives. Most worrying was the partition that disappeared from a drive after a swap (I managed to recover it but man I cr@pped myself.)

I now use 2 x Vantec Hard Drive Docks for hot-swapping drives and they don't give me any grief. Sure, SATA is faster than USB but "slow" beats "broken" 100% of the time

With regard to the temperature of the drives, yes they get hot but not too hot to handle with a bare hand.