Athena Power BP-SAC1111B 1 x Floppy Drive Bay for 1 x 2.5" HDD (SATA/SAS) Hot Swap Backplane

Pros: This little bay fits perfectly in a 3.5" floppy drive bay. And today who uses floppies anymore?

I work with customer 2.5" drives quite frequently and this little gem allows me to just plug them into my tower without having to open it up and manually connect cables.

A great item for swapping 2.5" drives! Don't pass this one up.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I'll be purchasing these for custom builds. They will make life easier in the long run.

Pros: Unbeatable way to make a 2.5" HDD or SSD externally accessible while still flush mounted to the case.

Supports SATAIII just fine, despite the SATAII decals on the box.

Here's the best part, which Newegg neglected to mention:
It is the exact dimensions of a 3.5" hard drive. Even the interface/power connectors and screw holes are a perfect match. Once a drive is inserted, it can be installed anywhere that is intended for a 3.5" drive (not so for many simple adapter brackets!) or popped in and out of 3.5" hot swap bays like the Kingwin KF-3002-BK or KF-252-BK with surgical precision and reliability.

Bravo!

Cons: It's a little hard to get a drive out once it is inserted. The drive is supposed to auto-eject a small ways as you open the door, but you have to pull hard enough on the door that I get nervous about breaking the mechanism and wind up sticking a finger in there to pull on the drive at the same time as the door, just to be sure.

It supports drives up to 12mm tall, but most modern 2.5" hard drives and SSD's are only 9.5mm tall, leaving a small gap above the drive. If you flip the unit over with a drive installed, there is nothing to support the weight at the front and this puts angled pressure on the drive connectors in the back. They could conceivably break if the enclosure where in a briefcase or tool bag and it were upside-down long enough. This will, of course, not be a problem if it is permanently installed.

Neither of the above problems were significant enough to pull an egg, though.

Other Thoughts: I built a DVR for a customer in an iStarUSA D416-B5SA-75 and used all of the hot-swap bays for a RAID5 array to store footage. I wanted the OS drive (a 2.5" SSD) to be externally accessible for easy emergency swapping and there were no 2.5" hot swap bays or external 3.5" bays. Combining this little gem with a Bytecc model 525 5.25" adapter bracket worked perfectly, especially since the DVR has a locking panel over the front of the case and the SSD couldn't protrude like many mobile racks cause them to do.