Advice request about SATA3 3.5-inches HDD racks

[Castor Nageur]

Hi everybody,

I am actually building my new home computer which will exclusively use
SATA3 hard disks.
For the convenience, I want to have all my hard disks racked.

I read the reviews on NewEgg and most of the recent racks (mostly Icy
Box & Icy Dock) do not have a power off switch.
I know the SATA3 connector is designed to be plug & play but I think
it would be much better is the power could be off while removing the
disk.

In my old computer, I use some Icy Box IB-138SK-B-II SATA2 racks wich
have a mixed lock/power off key but I did not find the equivalent on
new SATA 3 HDD.
These racks work very well and I never met any issues with them (but
they are SATA2 :-().

Here are my questions:

* I found much trayless racks than in the past so what do you think of
them ? Are they as reliable as tray racks (personally, I don't think
so) ?
* Do you thing a hard disk can really be safely removed from the rack
while the power is on ?
* Do you know a robust SATA3 rack model which has a front power off
switch (as far as I am concerned, I did not find one) ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I read the reviews on NewEgg and most of the recent racks (mostly Icy
Box & Icy Dock) do not have a power off switch.
I know the SATA3 connector is designed to be plug & play but I think
it would be much better is the power could be off while removing the
disk.

I have an Icy-Dock unit and I don't like it.

 

[Castor Nageur]

I have an Icy-Dock unit and I don't like it.

This is true I read a lot of negative reviews about Icy Dock (not to
confuse with Icy Box) units on NewEgg.

Why don't you like it ?

 

[Davej]

[...]
* I found much trayless racks than in the past so what do you think of
them ? Are they as reliable as tray racks (personally, I don't think
so) ?

I am trying a pair of trayless drives right now. So far they seem to
work. I am not attempting hot-swap.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is true I read a lot of negative reviews about Icy Dock (not to
confuse with Icy Box) units on NewEgg.

Why don't you like it ?

The initial one didn't work, period.

The replacement unit worked for a while but it's not been very many
months and I noticed my backup failed--it wasn't seeing part of it.
Now I can't get the unit to power up at all.

It also leaks voltage back on the USB connection. The machine won't
POST if this leak gets to the motherboard. When I mentioned that when
griping about the first non-functional unit they didn't seem to
consider it a problem. (Not only does it mean you have to unplug the
USB to boot but my experience is that it will in time destroy the port
on the motherboard. I consider my unit to be eSATA only because of
this.)

 

[Nobody > (Revisited)]

[...]
* I found much trayless racks than in the past so what do you think of
them ? Are they as reliable as tray racks (personally, I don't think
so) ?

I am trying a pair of trayless drives right now. So far they seem to
work. I am not attempting hot-swap.

I've been using the Antec EasySATA trayless bay-docks/racks for a couple
of years on various machines with no issues.
http://store.antec.com/Product/accessories-other/easy-sata/0-761345-30750-5.aspx.

"Hot Swap"? Unless it's in a RAID array, I don't see much need for it.
But I have tested it in both XP and Win7 and it works fine as long as
AHCI is enabled properly.

I prefer trayless docks/racks anyway. Every time I've found a decently
priced trayed model, finding the bare trays a year later becomes damned
near impossible.

The nice thing about SATA is the (now) universal dimensions/locations of
the rear connectors on the drives. The only SATA drive I've had problems
with in the EasySATA was a very early Samsung "skinny" unit that needed
a little shimming.



--
"Shit this is it, all the pieces do fit.
We're like that crazy old man jumping
out of the alleyway with a baseball bat,
saying, "Remember me motherfucker?"
Jim “Dandy” Mangrum

 

[helloworld]

The initial one didn't work, period.

It also leaks voltage back on the USB connection. The machine won't
POST if this leak gets to the motherboard.

So you have an external eSATA Icy Dock with both USB & eSATA ports.
I was talking about internal racks but even for internal products, I
read that several users who had their HDD destroyed by Icy Dock's
products.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rue&Keywords=(keywords)&Page=1#scrollFullInfo

So I prefer avoiding this brand.

As far as I am concerned, I have been using 3 of these and never met
any problem (I oftenly do hot plug):

http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/mobile-racks.php?we_objectID=6276

The only problem is they are SATA2.
Unfortunately, all the new models are trayless and does not have a
power switch.

 

[Castor Nageur]

I've been using the Antec EasySATA trayless bay-docks/racks for a couple
of years on various machines with no issues.http://store.antec.com/Product/accessories-other/easy-sata/0-761345-3....

Thanks but this rack does not support SATA3 as the little sentence
says: "* Data transfer speeds of up to 3Gbps"

"Hot Swap"? Unless it's in a RAID array, I don't see much need for it.

I am using HDD as I was using DVD and I do not use RAID.
I do a lot of photos and stores them in RAW format.
I also do a lot of disk to disk backup.
Because I never stop my computer (and do not want to do it), hot swap
is very useful for me.

I prefer trayless docks/racks anyway. Every time I've found a decently
priced trayed model, finding the bare trays a year later becomes damned
near impossible.

That's right, each brand has its own proprietary rack format so you
have to buy everything again when you change.

The nice thing about SATA is the (now) universal dimensions/locations of
the rear connectors on the drives. The only SATA drive I've had problems
with in the EasySATA was a very early Samsung "skinny" unit that needed
a little shimming.

I also read that some disk prevent you from closing the rack door
because they are too big.
This problem generally does not occur when the disk is screwed on a
tray.

 

[Nobody > (Revisited)]

I also read that some disk prevent you from closing the rack door
because they are too big.

The Antec EasySATA has a door, but it's only to close the hole with no
drive inserted , mainly for airflow and dust reasons.


--
"Shit this is it, all the pieces do fit.
We're like that crazy old man jumping
out of the alleyway with a baseball bat,
saying, "Remember me motherfucker?"
Jim “Dandy” Mangrum

 

[Castor Nageur]

The Antec EasySATA has a door, but it's only to close the hole with no
drive inserted , mainly for airflow and dust reasons.

I finally ordered this HDD bay:

http://lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=285&cl_index=2&sc_index=5&ss_index=12&g=f

I like it because it seems robust (as many reviewers said) and the
SATA cables are directly plugged to the HDD (there is no electronic
between the SATA controller and the HDD).
Moreover, it uses 3 racks but allows 4 HDD to be plugged and is well
cooled by the 12cm fan.