Re: Mobile racks and trays

Anna wrote:
news:6W3Sj.111$sv2.24@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anna said the following on 4/30/2008 11:23 AM:
ken k <kdkrone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have been thinking about using a mobile rack and tray system to >>>>>> swap out hard drives which store data, such as my music and video DVD collections. One such system is this: http://kingwin.com/mobileracktrays.asp

Does anyone have any experience with these systems for home use? Do the drives cook? Do the rack components (plastic) hold up over time?
Who makes a good one?

Thanks
Ken K

"Dave" <noway@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:20080429203159.736c1d7b.noway@xxxxxxxxxxxx
I've used those, including the ones you linked to. The drives DO cook. Most of these things have a cooling fan, but it really doesn't help. The rack components hold up fine over time. I had a problem with them that you probably wouldn't have considered, and maybe it doesn't apply to you. I was using them to "clone" IDE and SATA hard drives. There's probably a better way to do that, but in my line of work I had access to so many of those drive rack thingies that it seemed silly not to use them. :) Anyway, the IDE ones, the internal IDE cable where you mount the hard drive wears out quickly if you swap drives often, and (at least the ones I've seen) the cable is soldered to a little circuit board. Not a big deal if you don't plan to swap drives often. Kingwin is a good brand. Another is Icy Dock. Don't let the name fool you though, your hard drive will get hot as Hell in an Icy Dock (ha ha) though that brand is no worse than any other, as far as heat dissipation goes. And don't buy the hype. Some are said to dissipate heat through contact with a large heatsink surface or something. The problem is lack of airflow, even in the ones with the fan. There is no room for airflow. So the metal ones that are supposed to be cooler really aren't, as they don't allow more airflow than the plastic ones. I'd suggest you try a plastic one with a fan, if you must go that route. Note that your hard drive will still get hot. But the fan has got to be better than nothing, even though it doesn't seem to move enough air. -Dave


Anna wrote...
Ken:
I see you raised the same query in the ...hardware.storage newsgroup. The response you received from Tim Daniels pretty much parallels my experience. I believe Tim was referring to me as the person who recommended a particular make & model of mobile rack (removable hard drive) device. (See below).

We've been installing removable hard drives for about 10 years now. I've probably installed or participated in the installation of these devices a few thousand times over the years. We strongly recommend their use for PC >> desktop machines. (As you probably know they are not designed for laptops/notebooks.)

Our experience with these mobile racks has been quite positive - unlike the experience Dave cites. By & large we have found these devices quite reliable and rarely have had heat-related problems with them.

When we were working primarily with PATA HDDs we pretty much used >> various Lian Li models (all-aluminum). In the past few years we've been working primarily with SATA HDDs and now use the Athena Power MR->> 125 model (comes in beige & black) nearly exclusively. Newegg carries them and happily they've very inexpensive. (Tim was referring to that model >> in his response to you.)

We've installed or have had experience with hundreds of the Athena MR-
125 mobile racks and even though they're all-plastic we've rarely run into >> any problems (heat-related or otherwise) with them. Interestingly they have >> a bottom-mounted 80mm fan that's virtually dead silent.

We particularly like the fact that the Athena does not have a keylock device as nearly every other mobile rack has, but rather a push-button/lever affair that simplifies the ON-OFF insertion-removable process. For one reason or another we're frequently switching the removable trays/caddies and we prefer the Athena's device. But the keylock if fine for most users.

In any event, there are a slew of different makes & models of mobile racks out there. Just do a Google search and check the major online vendors such as newegg. But go that route. You'll never regret it except for the fact that you didn't sooner equip your desktop PC with one or two of those devices.
Anna

Anna,
OK, I am a smidge confused now that I have gone to the Athena Power website. The Kingwin setup has a rack that mounts in a 5 1/2" bay and there are trays in which one mounts the hdd. The tray is then installed/deinstalled into the "permanently" mounted rack in the computer.

Looking at the Athena website, it appears that there is a rack, but I do not see a tray on which the hdd is mounted, which would imply that a hdd is handled without its being mounted in a tray or the Athena MR-125 is an entire unit that must somehow be slid into a "permanently" mounted rack in the computer. I must be missing something here..

Can you clear this up for me?

Thanks
Ken K

Ken:
First of all I trust you understand that particular model of the Athena mobile rack is designed to house a SATA HDD. I just wanted to make that clear at the outset.

The Athena MR-125 is identical to virtually every other mobile rack designed to house a HDD in that it's a two-piece affair; the rack itself which is affixed to the desktop PC's 5 1/4" bay (just like you would affix an optical drive for example), and the removable tray (or caddy) that slides in & out of the rack. So while the rack itself is "permanently" mounted in the bay, the removable tray is just that, i.e., removable. You're right, neither the photos on the Athena site nor the newegg site...
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx? Item=N82E16817123302
show the removable tray, but trust me - the unit comes with the tray. Incidentally (AFAIK) the tray is not sold separately but the whole unit is relatively inexpensive - $20 including shipping from newegg.

BTW, Athena does have an all-aluminum model, the MR-136SATA, see...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811998021
A bit more expensive - $33 incl. shipping. We haven't worked with that particular model but we're aware of some users who have and they're happy with it. So if you're particularly interested in an all-aluminum model you may want to look into that one.

There is, however, one (possibly) major difference between the two models. While the MR-125 (plastic) is equipped with the 4-pin Molex power connector in addition to the 15-pin SATA power connector, the MR-136SATA model comes with only the latter connector. In most cases this shouldn't be an important consideration for the vast majority of users since their power supply will provide SATA power connectors (or a Molex-to-SATA power adapter can be used). And it's always advisable to provide power to a SATA HDD using a 15-pin SATA power connector whenever possible.
Anna


"Ken" <noreply@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
Thanks, Anna, for your response. What threw me is that the caddies are not offered separately. My thought is to keep all of my DVD and music data on hdd's that I can swap at will, using the caddies to protect the drives (as you say, the MR-125 units are not very expensive and I could toss the racks of all but one or two, just keeping the caddies for the hdd's. It sounds like this is what you must do.

WRT to the aluminum models, is it your feeling that the aluminum does not help much with cooling? Also, you mention somewhere that you have used the plastic models in a boatload of installations. Are the drives
running all of the time or are they only loaded for a short time and then removed. I am trying to get a take on whether the drives will cook in their little plastic coffins....

WRT to SATA, I am almost 100% SATA I and II, so that is not an issue.

Question: out of curiousity what is the issue with connecting a drive using a Molex 4 wire connector versus the SATA standard connector? (My power supply has both Molex and SATA modular power connectors and I have only used the SATA connectors, even for two drives that were hybrid with both Molex and SATA power connectors [older drives]

Second question: with all of the insertion and removal of caddies, have you had many failures of the internal SATA connectors (power and data cable) on the inside of the racks?

Many thanks for your extremely valuable input!
Ken K


Ken:
All I can tell you is that we've encountered no heat-related problems with the Athena plastic mobile racks noted above. Most users generally employ one of the removable HDDs as their booting day-to-day working HDD, and should they have installed two mobile racks the other rack is used for backup & other data storage of one kind or another. So they get reasonably hard use. I really don't think you'll encounter any heat-related problems with these racks, or for that matter any other problem with them. Their failure rate doesn't seem to be much different from any other major PC component and even when they do fail (again, a rather rare event in our experience), we've never encountered any problem with the HDD contained therein.

As to the Molex power connector...

SATA-II (or more precisely, SATA-IO) specifications call for using the 15-pin SATA power connector rather than the 4-pin Molex connector in order for the drive to be "hot-pluggable" ("hot-swappable"). So all in all we feel it's desirable to use the SATA 15-pin power connector whenever it's available.

I must say, however, that in our experience, we've never run into any problems re data loss/corruption when using a Molex power connector. But with all the power supplies manufactured during the past few years it's becoming a moot point since they're all equipped nowadays with (hopefully!) sufficient SATA power connectors.

With respect to your second question - no, we haven't encountered significant problems with the internal connectors of the mobile rack. As I indicated above occasionally a rack will become defective but it's a relatively rare event in our experience.

In any event, experiment with one or more. They're cheap enough.
Anna


Many, many thanks to you for sharing your experience!

Ken K
.