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SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1B Server Accessories
Customer Reviews for SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B Black 5 Bay Hot-Swapable SATA HDD Enclosure - Retail
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Price: $109.99
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Review Summary (75 Reviews): Rating + 5
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Reviewer Product Review
N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/27/2010 2:51:18 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Rock Solid, easy use, looks nice

Cons: Loud fan, hard to install in non-server cases

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Desibeli
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/11/2010 8:55:22 AM

Rating + 5 Solid product


Pros: Trays installs well and fan is reasonably quiet.

Cons: None.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

LZ68
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/6/2010 6:04:29 PM

Rating + 2 Not Happy


Pros: Would be a great idea if it would fit in my case.

Cons: I wish I would have read the reviews better, it does not fit in the CM Storm case without bending or grinding tabs off. Lost money due to the restocking fee to RMA it.

Other Thoughts: If you have tabs sticking out to hold normal DVD drives, you will probably have to modify your case for this to fit. I was not willing to do that with my brand new case.

1 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

meveng
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
11/24/2009 7:30:17 AM

Rating + 5 Using this for 4 years now


Pros: What can I say? Well, simply no problems with this enclosure operation. Only mishap was a much too powerfull cooling fan that caused a hissing sound with air rushing around the drives. I substituted with a little less powerful one and issue solved.

Cons: Maybe the drives activity lights should respond to the signal arriving at the enclosure and not rely on the single activity light connection on modern motherboards. Also, most PC cases have to be modified a little to accomodate this enclosure in the DVD/CD drive spaces. This is because the enclosure lacks the indentations needed to accomodate the regular DVD/CD mounting "ridges". These 'ridges' have to be bent out of the way.

Other Thoughts: Great mutiple drive enclosure. Haven't had a single drive failure in these four years, probably due to very good drive cooling. I use my PC 18 hours every day.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Ryan
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
10/21/2009 7:05:38 PM

Rating + 4 Great Product


Pros: Good compact drive. 80 mm fan. This unit circulates air very well to keep drives cool. 80mm fan also means that the fan is more reliable than those little bitty ones used for smaller bays and very easy to change in the event it does go out. We have 3 of these on our servers running a raid 6 on adaptec 5805 controllers. These work great. I have had no issues with any of these what so ever other than slight modification to make them fit.

Green lights woork either by connecting cable or by detecting HD activity. Pretty kewl in my book.

Cons: Red lights don't do anything. They actually blink for drive failure in the scsi version. That would be very nice. I would have given it 2 more eggs if it did that.

Other Thoughts: I had to modify the case that had tabs for the cdrom drives so that it could occupy 3 bays. I simply bent the tabs out of the way. I also had to modify the fan bracket so it didn't hit the ram on my MB. very simple mods though.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

mosestech99
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/8/2009 4:10:24 AM

Rating + 5 Great little home server HD Enclosure


Pros: Good build quality for the price. I have this running 2- 1TB seagate (ST310005N1A1AS-RK) hard drives right now and it works flawlessly on Windows 2003. Item was packaged very well from supermicro. Lots of Long SATA cables. Decent airflow from the rear fan. No surprise since its was a Sanyo/Denki fan. Couldn't really hear it over the fans in the server case though. I have a 4U Rackmount server case and it fits perfectly.

Cons: Hard drive caddies in my opinion are little on the light side. Wish the HD caddies were built how the compaq/hp proliant ones are. SATA cables arent the locking type.

Other Thoughts: I have this paired up with the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 SATA controller card. The drive caddy fit perfectly in my 4u server case. The case I have is the same as the Athena/Arc/Rosewill RSV-Z4000 ones.

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OldDude
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/7/2009 11:42:28 AM

Rating + 4 Looks nice, works good


Pros: Fits nicely in my CM Stacker 830. Drives fit nice. Will be buying another to finish my 8x1.5TB RAID array.

Cons: My raid controller marks my 15k SAS drives as "unknown" speed and it marks my SATA drives as 1.5gbps speed. But, not really looking for speed as much as space.

Other Thoughts: Used this w/3x 1.5TB Seagate LP (5900RPM) drives to reduce heat and 2x 300GB Seagate 15k SAS drives. Also installed a GELID 92mm fan that has a built in thermal speed control. Fed the thermal sensor in between the 2 15k SAS drives and when they get warm the fan speeds up.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

engineer
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/3/2009 8:34:36 PM

Rating + 4 Mostly does the job I wanted...


Pros: Fits in the 4U rack-mount chassis I chose.
Easy to install and operate.
Has its' own fan for increased cooling of drives.

Cons: Not all Status and Warning Lights per bay might be usable as desired depending on your choice of RAID controller. They work differently depending on whether this is the SCSI, SAS, or SATA version of this enclosure.
Carefully read the instructions for the enclosure and your drive controller to make sure they'll both give you what you want for status/warning/failure/alarm lights.

Other Thoughts: So far I'm satisfied with the quality and performance of this device.
This is my first attempt at using a hot-swap enclosure and SATA/SAS RAID controller. The hot-swap feature works well and the hot-spare option of my controller card also plays nice with this enclosure.
This enclosure works well for what I wanted out of it other than the warning lights on indivual bays not being able to show me when an individual drive starts having I/O problems when combined with the controller I chose.

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vcr-one
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/25/2009 6:49:41 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Love this drive Bay you will not find one made any better then this one .

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Keeps 5 Seagate 1.5 TB 7200 rpm Drives at 91 Degrees 24 / 7

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/6/2009 10:27:27 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Works as advertised, very sturdy feel, includes cables, fan fail/overheat alert and looks better than I thought it would based on the pictures (pretty good look overall.)

Cons: Fan is fairly loud. (I replaced it with a 92mm Scythe KAMA FLEX SA0925FDB12L that's near silent. Would recommend.)
Plastic tray handles seem a little fragile when locking the trays back in place (the rest of the device is very sturdy though)

Other Thoughts: As others have said, if you have "shelves" in your case for 5.25" drives you'll need to find a way to fold them down or Dremel them off (I used a Dremel, it wasn't much of a pain. Couldn't think of a way to fold them)

I don't know what a couple of these reviews are talking about with full size 5.25" bays. It uses up 3 half size bays, not full size.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Desibeli
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/3/2009 8:31:43 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: Installed well, trays slides well. Connected to the MB SATA headers and activity lights works.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: It is a real advantage to be able to upgrade and replace drives in the computer from the front. I have mine in a rack and the extra price I paid for this product makes up for having to pull stations from the rack.

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bobby
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/30/2009 9:33:20 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: Easy to install
cables connections are strong
My fan was not noisy
Buying second one today

Cons: none
no extra trays to buy

Other Thoughts: works with XP,2003,vista,2008
Have the Supermicro 8 port card.

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HDave
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
5/18/2009 12:19:56 PM

Rating + 5 Great product.


Pros: Bought two of these for my Lian Li PC-A77 case and they fit great and look great too. I did not find the drive holders to be flimsy...they're fine. You also get little stickers to put on each drive door. Fan cage snaps on and off easily -- which is great if you need extra room temporarily in the case for wiring up a motherboard.

Cons: Documentation stinks, but product is not very complicated to figure out. Drive activity lights "just work" with Seagate ES.2 drive and 3Ware 9650SE-8LPML. Stock fans are fairly noisy...not super-loud, but still loud. Replacement fans really should be PWM (pulse-width-modulated 4 wire connector) enabled. I used ARCTIC COOLING ACF9PWM 92mm case fan and it's extra quiet and very cool and takes full advantage of the 38.5mm depth available.

Other Thoughts: Have no idea if the drive fault lights "just work." Don't know how to test these.

Specs for the stock fan (Sanyo Denki Model San Ace 92 - 9G0912P2H03) say it is 90mm....I measured it, its 92mm....must be a type-o.

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Shin0bi272
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/2/2009 5:56:06 AM

Rating + 4 Good so far


Pros: 5 drives in 3 bays
hot swappable
large 92mm very effective fan
5 individual plugs for the drives
2 power plugs
comes with cables
activity LEDs

Cons: I received the wrong number of screws

The fan is a tad loud but it is a 92x92x38mm so thats sort of expected.

no failed LED header and/or cable

Other Thoughts: I am attaching this to a raid 5 controller so to get activity lights I have to attach the activity header cable to the activity jumpers on the card. The only way to get a failed LED is to plug the activity header cables into the failed jumpers on the card. I dont know about everyone else's motherboard but mine didnt have failed LED jumpers. However when plugging the sata cable into the motherboard directly (for testing purposes) I got activity lights without using the activity LED header and cable. So the entire issue is you need a failed LED header NOT an activity header so much.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

bigod26
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/28/2009 1:35:19 AM

Rating + 5 awesome


Pros: 5 drives in 3 5.25 bays
quiet fan, good air flow, drives stay cool

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I use to buy single drive chassis now all i want are these!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Strydyr
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
2/21/2009 4:59:20 PM

Rating + 5 Excellent


Pros: Works exactly as advertised. What more can I say?

Cons: Loud fans

Other Thoughts: I put 6 of these in a custom-built case. I'm back to buy another, which probably says it all. I strongly recommend replacing the fans with something a bit more quiet. I also reversed the fan direction to blow hot air out of the case instead of pulling it in. The machine doubles as a space-heater!

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bad Syntax
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/26/2009 9:20:16 AM

Rating + 5 Awesome


Pros: I bought 2 along with a SCSI version for my new computer. They work great, have 5 SATA plugs and work with no issues. Has a fan on the back and stays relatively cool

Cons: The hot swappable drive chassis are a bit weak, but ok for home use. I didn't like that they needed 2 power plugs.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/8/2009 6:40:40 PM

Rating + 5 Works great


Pros: I have 3 of these, and I'm really happy with them. They make it a lot easier to replace drives, and they let you fit more drives into a smaller space. In addition, they provide delayed spin-up for your SATA devices. It's undocumented in the manual, but drives don't start spinning until they're scanned by the BIOS, while the same drives start spinning at power-on if they're not in the enclosure. That saves me ~30A of 12V power, which means that I can get by with a 750W power supply instead of needing 1k or something crazy like that for a 18-drive system.

Cons: It's a pain to fit into any case with shelves for 5.25" devices. I've had to dremel off a couple to make it fit. That's not supermicro's fault, though.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

JustHacked
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/6/2009 11:05:56 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: These are very good mobile racks that just so happen to be universal. Installed in a Stacker II, they are used by some HPT2220 cards for a RAID5, with no issues whatsoever.

Cons: None at all!

Other Thoughts: Supermicro makes some nice storage accessories. I highly recommend them to anyone looking to make an inexpensive server who doesn't want to buy the full-bore server stuff at premium cost.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

shoult
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/2/2009 1:57:37 PM

Rating + 4 Works as expected, with caveats


Pros: This is a well designed 5 bay hot swap sub-enclosure amde of high quality materials. The single fan ventilates the enclosure well. The aluminum drive trays fit, slide and lock well. It's Supermicro!

Cons: No real cons but those in the thoughts section.

Other Thoughts: I held out for this Supermicro enclosure because I wanted it to match my Supermicro 743 7 bay hot swap SATA case. What I found is that it doesn't fit properly without surgery on the case. Between each of the 3 needed 5.25 slots are tabs that stick into the bay area. If you cut these out or bend then out of the way the case 5 bay enclosure will slide right in. HOWEVER, mounted this way the drives are at a 90 degree angle to the other 7 drives. If you lay the 5 bay enclosure in so the drives are the same way as the others you can't screw it in and you're left with room for maybe a slimline CD/DVD drive at the top. I went the latter direction. Now I have room for an 16.5TB array in one box once Seagate resolves the problems with the 1.5TB hard drives.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

dan
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/12/2008 10:14:01 AM

Rating + 3 nice enough


Pros: fits 5 hdd in 3 5.25 spaces. hot plug with supported sata chipset. 80mm fan and front vents. hdd trays seem sturdy enough, as good as my ibm hot swap sata trays.

Cons: fan blocks access to sata plugs, but is removable. like most inexpensive racks like this, does not have activity lights for standard sata drives unless sata card has activity plugs.

Other Thoughts: easy way to jam 10 drives in a 4u rack for cheap.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

IOC
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/11/2008 3:31:10 PM

Rating + 5 Solid product but watch that length.


Pros: Very solid construction, feels much better than some similarly-priced products I have used. Simple setup process. The fan can be removed from the system quite easily and the fan alarm can be disabled with a jumper - my drives are still well within their spec even with no fan and in a relatively small case, so consider it as an option.

Cons: The latching mechanism feels like it takes more force than it should - I was worried I was going to snap a SATA connector off of a drive, though my fear may be unfounded.

Other Thoughts: This thing is LONG. I actually managed to cram one into an Antec NSK4480 to get more drives, but it took some creative metalwork on the Antec case to make it fit. The issue is that not only is it longer than the average optical drive (which is all most modern tower cases are meant to fit), it's entirely solid whereas there is a small amount of space between two adjacent single-bay optical drives, which will give you room for alignment tabs and internal case bracing. I suspect many average desktop cases will require similar modifications to fit this, but it's well worth it - you get a solid and reliable method to mount a large number of drives in a very small space.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

CyberDyneSystems
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/5/2008 7:44:39 PM

Rating + 5 Excellent affordable Hot Swap


Pros: My system has two RAID arrays and a single drive (7 drives total)
5 of them are in this bay, a four drive RAID array and a 74GB Raptor which I use as a swapfile and when I need to boot into WinXP32
The drive bay makes maintaining a RAID array easy without opening the case.
Lots of drives fit in a small space.

Cons: I worried about heat, but does not seem to be an issue.
The fan is loud!

Other Thoughts: Other than the loud fan, this is a great way to turn any decent sized tower into a flexible server.

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Xboxor
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/20/2008 8:17:02 PM

Rating + 5 Nice


Pros: Very cool drive temp. I have seen reports that say this unit has a loud fan, mine seems to be rather quite. Supports staggered spin-up, and activity for each drive, both features require use of SATA power connector pin# 11. Make sure you drives support that feature. Some SATA1, and all SATA2 drives are supposed to support this feature.

Cons: Hard to install into a quality case. Most cases have pieces of metal partially dividing each drive bay to make installing drives easier.

Other Thoughts: I wired this up to my LSi MegaRAID SAS controller. Perfect combination!

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/16/2008 9:01:05 AM

Rating + 5 Very good enclosure


Pros: Solid construction, good value and looks nice in a black mini-tower Antec case. I was even surprised to see the activity LEDs worked without having to connect the extra cables.

Cons: The fan in back is a little loud but it doesn't bother me too much. I have this PC sitting downstairs anyway. The fit is a little tight for my mini-tower case but it saved me lots to not have to get a server case.

Other Thoughts: I am using 4 Seagate ES.2 750s in a RAID 5 configuration.

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crispx
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
9/1/2008 8:46:12 AM

Rating + 5 Outstanding product


Pros: Just purchased four of these and ordered twelve more, even though most will be a single drive. I had terrible problems with intermittent connections with three of the other "cheapy" caddies (they don't know how to design the connectors). I'm about to order another one for my home based Linux web server. For those with noise issues the fan is a std 3-pin, just add in a Zalman or similar speed control. Uses dual std molex for power, comes with cables and very sturdy drive caddies. All connections are easily accessible. Each caddy has light pipe illumation for two LEDs.

Cons: The unit is large. However, the fan is easily removed/replaced. No physical drive locks.

Other Thoughts: I might be using some of these without the fan in a server case that has three internal 120mm fans. This will allow me to gut the existing 604 Xeon mobos and upgrade the boxes to SATA and later technology.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

AlaskanDude
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
8/10/2008 7:38:52 PM

Rating + 5 worth buying


Pros: 5-in-3, what's not to like?
Solid Supermicro quality. Great shipping package.

Cons: Fan is made for server environments and doesn't have the desktop user in mind. For quiet operation with plenty of airflow replace stock fan with a Scythe KAMA FLEX SA0925FDB12L.

Other Thoughts: Be aware that if your case has ledges to support 5.25" drives, you will have to do some bending to get this to fit. Also be aware that the fan mount sticks out in back, and may get in the way of connecting power to your motherboard. That's easily fixed by mounting this unit into the uppermost 3 bays of your case.

If you are looking to purchase a new case, I would advise against putting these into a medium tower if you plan to mount more than one. The fan mount at the back can really get in the way if your case is a med tower.

I gave this 5 eggs even though one has to replace the fan. This was intended for server use, and thus the original fan is a good choice and the product shouldn't be rated down because of that.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

JRC
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/22/2008 6:59:24 PM

Rating + 4 Works well for a desktop machine


Pros: Works well with a RAID 5 configuration; SATA 3.0 drives; hot-swap.

Cons: The stock fan is loud - probably not noticeable in a server room, but too loud for a desktop. I replaced it with a SilenX IXP-62 (92mm), and the drives are barely warm without the noise. The screws for drive brackets are tiny, but they secure the drives OK. The fan housing adds almost 2" to the depth of the enclosure, and might hang over the motherboard.

Other Thoughts: I used 5 250GB Seagate Barracuda drives in a RAID 5 array and have 930GB of usable space. I tested a rebuild of the array with one drive removed on boot, and then hot swap the drive back - worked perfect for each drive. I put this in a Lian Li PC-A17B case and it fit perfectly since there were no drive guide tabs, plus you can place the enclosure anywhere from top to bottom. I used GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R motherboard because it has 6 SATA connectors on the Intel chipset (2 other SATA connectors on a Gigabyte chip). This configuration only cost $60 more than a single 1TB drive, and it can support a drive failure without losing all the data.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Scott DC
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/7/2008 6:05:24 AM

Rating + 5 Works Great - Poor Manual


Pros: Solid construction - still working great almost 3 years later. SATAII compatible. Keeps drives relatively cool.

Cons: Fan is awfully loud. Horrible documentation. Unit has two power inputs - supermicro support says the first one powers drives 1-3, the second powers 4+5. In one computer this was installed in the computer wouldn't even boot with both connected and everything worked fine with just one. In the current computer both are connected and working.

Other Thoughts: Supermicro claims the fan is a 90mm fan - but at least in the one i received back in August of 05, the fan is clearly a 92mm fan.

5 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

MR2Dave
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/2/2008 8:16:51 PM

Rating + 5 Perfect


Pros: I've had one of these for well over a year and recently bought a second. It won't be long before I guy a third. These are easily the best hot-swap bays I've ever used (and I've used quite a few).

Cons: Could be cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Ryan
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/23/2008 12:10:16 PM

Rating + 5 Reliable but occasional tight fit


Pros: Reliable, Well Ventilated, SATA or SAS! We switched to these as the standard for our servers at work, and I have two of them at home. Given the right chipset, hotswap works beautifully.

Cons: Make sure you have three completely open 5.25 bays (watch for dividers that you may have to bend in)

On some cases, the fit is not just tight... it's an exercise in futility. I guess some 5.25 bays are more 5.25 than others...

Other Thoughts: We have these bays running both SAS and SATA. You can split the bays up on multiple controllers and use both in the same bay

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Fluid
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/9/2008 9:35:32 AM

Rating + 5 Very good


Pros: Excellent product. No communication failures at all, solid construction. Many say the bays are flimsy, but in my opinion they are satisfactory, and look quite professional. LED connections are easy.

Cons: Only con I can think of is the standard fan. It's pretty loud. Buy a cheap quiet replacement 90mm like I did. Very easy to switch out.

Other Thoughts: Overall, excellent item.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Xdot
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/1/2008 7:52:38 PM

Rating + 4 Awesome, but beware.


Pros: Very straight forward setup. Quick and easy. The hotswap capabilities are wonder, as long as your card will support it. I have 3 of these in a Cooler Master CM Stacker case, for 15 drive bays!

Cons: SATA I. All drives will be recognized as SATA I, many may argue that there is no performance difference really, but I beg to differ. The only thing that saves me any real performance complaints is the relatively small amount of disk activity on my arrays.

2 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Anonymous Coward
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/25/2008 4:21:08 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: Other reviews adaquately described this product fairly well. I am very happy with this product, as it does what it was designed to do. I have this cage hooked up to a LSI Logic MegaRaid SATA 150-6 (5xRAID5+1hotspare) and am enjoying the fully hotswapable nature of the backplane. I have tested online rebuilds by replacing random drives.

Cons: Snapping the drives in securely is a little harsh, as sometimes I feel like I am going to break the tray handle. Installing the cage using case rails was difficult and very tedious.

Other Thoughts: Good product for it's price. I am happy I pulled the trigger on this one. I have had no problems with cooling as the machine is in a well ventilated room and relies on a spacious and well ventilated case.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

piako
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/5/2008 4:37:32 AM

Rating + 4 these are good


Pros: 25 hdd screws and 24 bay-mount screws included. Trays have optional stickers (included). Housing says assembled in the USA. Control of temperature and fan with jumpers. Standard 3-pin fan header (unknown amperage). Comes with 5 24-inch sata cables (lead free =)). Hot swap. If you're interested here are the fan specifications: (Sanyo Denki 'San Ace 92' model 9G0912H204 aka Fan-0057L, 92mm, 32mm thick, .23 amps, 3.1 watts, 2850 rpm, 56.1 cfm, static pressure .2, noise 32 dB).

Cons: UPS fairly destroyed box, newegg needs to do better job taping box. Tray has a unused led for drive fail indicator. Backplane pcb only has led for activity. Backplane accepts drives with sata power only. Sometimes the drives don't seat properly for some reason, but they always work if you try a few times.

Other Thoughts: Trays come with dummy drives. Doing a Internet search for "dummy tray" lands you on a pdf manual for another supermicro product which states that the dummy trays must remain unless a hdd is present. Would have like to see some form of security locking. Housing has led for fan fail and overheat. Buzzer also on pcb. Not very loud. The activity leds work and the supplied cables for this purpose work adequately and are rainbow-colored, oh yes.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Newegg Shopper
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/1/2008 4:53:34 PM

Rating + 4 Nice SATA Hot-Swap Backplane


Pros: Modular fan assembly allows different fans to be used. Keeps drives cool even with slower (quieter) fans. Easy to use. 92mm fan (most competing 5-in-3 hot-swap backplanes seem to use 80mm or smaller fans). Can be made quiet with a different fan.

Cons: Biggest issue: while the airflow design is generally good, the design does allow for some short-circuiting of air. The ideal situation is for all the airflow that the fan generates to be pulled over and across the hard drives. But if you look at the back of the unit, you can see that some of the air will be pulled through the holes (e.g. for the SATA cables, power cables, etc). Can be remedied with some taping, however.

Plastic frame that holds 92mm fan in place isn't as tight as I'd like. Not a big deal.

Price seems high for what it is, but reasonable compared to similar products.

Other Thoughts: I studied all the available 5-in-3 (and 4-in-3) hot-swap SATA backplanes. This one always seemed like the nicest one, particularly because of the easily-swappable 92mm fan. I put in a quieter 92mm fan, and my drives all stay around 35 degrees Celsius. I bought two of these for the hec RA466A00 4U rackmount server chassis; in the future I'll add a third.

I knocked one egg from the overall rating only because of the air-flow short-circuit situation. Not a deal breaker, as even a slower (quieter) fan keeps the drives cool enough. But I think Supermicro could fairly easily improve the design to eliminate this problem.

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Cr0n_J0b
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/26/2007 1:50:32 PM

Rating + 4 So Far so Good


Pros: It does what I expected. It's very sturdy from an enclosure perspective, though the latches are a bit weak. Docs are good enough to get by.

Cons: The latches would be the only thing I would mention. They are just a little bit flimsy...but that's a minor issue. I would have liked to see a bigger fan and maybe better ventilation..

Other Thoughts: Basically, it's a pretty simple device. I haven't tested the alams and such, so I can't speak to that.

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B Leisle
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
10/23/2007 10:56:50 AM

Rating + 4 Great backplane


Pros: Well built, quality backplane with good airflow.

Rear fan cage unsnaps easily if you want to replace the stock fans.

You can't see it in the pictures, but the sides of each individual drive mount are aluminum and have small grooves that help with heat dissipation.

Cons: Some of the red buttons that you push to release the drive from the backplane are not very tight and/or don't fit over the tab very far so the slightest touch will release your drive. It's random, but about 5 or 6 buttons out of the 20 (I have 4 of these backplanes) are very touch sensitive. I wish there was a locking mechanism for each drive to prevent accidental release.

Other Thoughts: I crammed 4 of these backplanes into a Cooler Master CMStacker by removing the top button panel in the Stacker case. It's a very tight fit and I really hope I never have to remove the backplanes from the case, but it does fit.

The fans that come with the backplane are Sanyo Denki 92x32mm Mini Ace ball bearing fans - part number 109P0912H201, rated at 55.1cfm and 36dba. I opted to replace the stock fans with 92x25mm Panaflo FBA09A12M1A fans, which are not only quieter, but IMO, have a more pleasing sound than the ball bearing sound from the Sanyo Denki's. Airflow difference between the two fans is minimal.

Picked these up online elsewhere for significantly less, not often I find products for less, let alone as much as I did in this case from vendors other than newegg.

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kenny
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/3/2007 12:00:20 PM

Rating + 5 no problems, love it!


Pros: Quality fit, fan keeps the HDD's cool, very reliable, sturdy construction, easy installation (don't be a bonehead and fault the enclosure because you didnt research the case your installing it in to make sure it fits), power and activity lights work fine, and it looks good.

Cons: None really. I can see why someone wouldnt like the jumper location, because it would be difficult to change while installed, but technically once you set it and install it why would you need to mess with it again?

Other Thoughts: We have used the SCSI version of these enclosures in our servers at work for a few months without any problems at all. They are inexpensive, look good, reliable, and I've never had a problem with either the SCSI version or this SATA version.

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tomdlgns
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
8/30/2007 7:42:43 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: works great! i recommend it for anyone that needs HDD space and swaps often. i can quickly swap drives or add drives. no more opening the case to do this!!!

Cons: the plastic clip for the fan did not hold on the back of the case when i tried to install it. actually, it fit in the slot easily, but it just didn't extend to the width of the slot. kind of hard to explain i guess. either way, a small piece of velcro worked to make sure the clip wouldn't fall out of the slot.

keep in mind this could have just been a small defect with the plastic mold i received.

Other Thoughts: yes, the connectors and jumpers are hard to reach, however, once you set the jumpers how you want and plug in the sata connectors, you shouldnt have to get to them again.

i did all that before i put it in my case, so it wasn't really a problem for me. i am using this product on a home server and i couldn't be happier with it. the HDD activity lights work i think the extra wiring that came with the unit is for HDD fail detection, but i don't need that right now. if i try to access a drive and it failed i will figure it out pretty quick.

you might want this feature if this is for a work environment, however, i don't need it right now.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

ehall
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/1/2007 9:34:48 AM

Rating + 3 They're just okay


Pros: They can run SATA/300 speeds. They seem to work pretty well despite the flimsy feel. They are tight fitting, but actually do fit (others have not). Screws mount through the side, so vibration is not a problem. Fan is removable.

Cons: Jumpers and connectors are hard to reach. The materials feel cheap. I don't like the coloring and style much either--this is not a sexy device. Drives get hot although the removable fan helps. However the fan is very large and too big for my Chenbro RM316 cases (it has fans on the midbar so not a real problem). On my small Chenbro RM323 case that does not have midbar fans, I had to remove the midbar altogether to use the fan due to size problems.

Other Thoughts: Probably the best unit out there, although I am not very satisfied with these units and will be looking elsewhere for my next purchase.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jon
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/12/2007 5:09:54 PM

Rating + 4 Solidly Built for a Good Price


Pros: The unit I received doesn't need the activity LEDs to be hooked up to the controller card to function. The cage is solidly built from sheet steel. The drive carriers are made of steel aluminum and plastic.

Cons: Fail LEDs aren't even mounted on the SATA version of this board, I pulled the backplane to check.

Other Thoughts: The fan is a little on the noisy side, to be expected for server equipment. Also, when inserting drives, don't push them completely in. You have to push them most the way in, and let the locking lever bring them in the rest of the way. Otherwise the locking lever gets stuck in the unlocked position.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/1/2007 5:04:32 AM

Rating + 5 Works great


Pros: Activity lights work based on SATA activity, no LED connections needed for that. Fault lights will though. Appears to be SATA III compliant..same benchmarks as direct connect. Use the stock fan, just disable the fan detector and put on a speed control.

Cons: Left most drive bay has something inside that makes it hard to slide drive carrier in/out. If a carrier rattles, just bend out the torsion springs slightly and they quiet down. Wish you could buy spare carriers.

Other Thoughts: I'm used to having the side panel of my PC off to make constant changes to disks, this makes it so easy.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/29/2007 6:29:05 PM

Rating + 4 Nice Rack!


Pros: This is one of the two full-height 5.25" racks that I could find that accept 5 3.5" HDDs. Most of the others only accept 4 drives. It's constructed surprisingly well for the price. I've had no issues with either of the two I've purchased.

Cons: The provided fan is robust, but it's extremely loud. Also, the drive activity lights don't work with all SATA drives. With my Western Digital and Maxtor drives the lights worked properly, but not with my Hitachi drives.

Other Thoughts: It would be nice if the drive fail lights worked on the SATA version of the rack. Also, if anyone from Supermicro is reading this, how about putting a larger, quieter fan on the unit (or maybe the same size, but quieter)?

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/8/2006 3:57:25 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: Seems to work fine, supports staggered spinup with newer SATA drives that need the "floating pin 11" setup. Cooling is pretty good, drives stay around 35C in use.

Cons: The SATA version has no fault LEDs regardless of what the specs say. This is too bad since my controller has both fault and activity led outputs so it would have been nice to be able to use those. The fan is definitely too loud to be around people, so plan on putting it in a dedicated server room.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/6/2006 11:58:20 AM

Rating + 5 Ice


Pros: I bought the hottest, fastest SATA drives there are. This thing keeps them ice cold.

Cons: Minimal noise.

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

justDIY
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/18/2006 5:29:17 PM

Rating + 3 Watch out!


Pros: Good price, solid assembly, real one-piece backplane, not just 5 single backplanes set in plastic together like certain other models. trays slide in and out easily, connectors for individual leds, comes with sata cables and mounting screws.

Cons: I need to buy a new case or take a grinder to the one I have now. make sure your case can accept full-height or larger 5.25" devices. all the cases I have currently only accept half-height 5.25" devices, like cdrom size. This unit expects to use the entire width of the bay and will tolerate no rails or device support tabs.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Ross
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/15/2006 12:23:29 AM

Rating + 5 Tested and Approved


Pros: Had a drive Failure on a RAID50 was so nice to remove and install while system was still spitting out data. Failed in the middle of the night, alarms from device woke me up. Removed drive with failed light on and installed the spare I had on hand. I was able to go back to sleep within 5 minutes and by morning controller card had finnished initialized raid back up no problem, system was not shut down, site all intacked. NICE:)

Cons: Best device I have ever bought for a case and computer. Saved time so I could get other things done (Sleep).

Other Thoughts: Would have had to shut down ,remove side, remove screws, remove drive, pulled cables, install cables on new drive, installed, put screws back in HD, put sides back on, booted system.

I did, pushed release button, removed drive cartridge, installed new cartridge, DONE!!! and went back to sleep.

Ahh, Nice zzzzzzzzzzzzz

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cvr20
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
8/29/2006 9:15:33 PM

Rating + 5 can't get enough of these


Pros: - Buy Cheaper cases, all you need is open 5.25" bays - More flexible, I often mix SCA/SCSI and SATA, try finding a case that accomodates both in hotswap! - Never had a drive overheat, no matter how hot everything else gets - solid construction compared to some chenbro/aic/supermicro alternatives.

Cons: Not cheap.. but 260 for a plain 3U plus 2 of these gets you 10x hotswap (SCA or SATA) for under 600.. not bad.

Other Thoughts: Mid-tower, Full-Tower, 3U and above , I put one of these in just about everything.

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/22/2006 7:10:29 AM

Rating + 5 Great drive bays!!


Pros: These are great hot swap drive bays! Especially when running RAID 5 and you have the LEDs working. Keeps everything cool and running smoothing without ever having to shut down the server.

Cons: The fans are a tad on the loud side, you either get use to it or try and find a 92 that will work but keep it cool too. Remember, this is for a server, not the mom and pop computer!

Other Thoughts: For those saying it isn't true hot swap either have poor raid cards or just do not understand how to intialize a new hard drive. I am running Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and 3ware 9500's and I can hot swap the drives while the server still runs.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jagged
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/22/2006 10:12:20 AM

Rating + 5 Great for hotswapping drives!


Pros: I'm currently using one of these in a CM Stacker case with a 3ware 9500s-12 raid controller and 5 250gb seagate 7200.8 drives and it's working beautifully.

LED lights worked fine (rev 1.1). There is one common ground and 5 Vcc lines. I just connected the common ground to the first led lead's ground and proceeded to connect all the rest of the leads to the positive leads on the raid controller. I'm not sure if this would work for onboard controllers or not, but I don't know why it wouldn't.

Cons: Well, as some have mentioned the included fan (92mm x 38mm) is pretty loud. I would recommend replacign with a 92mm x 25mm fan (I went w/ a 92mm Panaflo L1A)

Other Thoughts: I plan on ordering at least one more of these at some point in the future.

Rev 2.0 gets the hd activity from the sata cable, where as the Rev 1.1 gets it from a seperate LED HD Activity jumper (either onboard or on your raid controller). I don't think Newegg is shipping anything other than Rev 2.0 at this point.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

teddy3501
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/31/2006 6:57:15 PM

Rating + 4 good overall


Pros: 1. takes up only 3 5.25" slots. make sure your case does not have guide rails.
2. requires only 2 power plugs

Cons: 1. flimsy construction. the hd release button and lever are delicate plastic
2. fan is kinda loud
3. minor: could have had a better look to it. the purple button does not go with any case
4. LED does not work on earlier models (see below)

Other Thoughts: i bought 3 of these for my Cooler Master Stacker case. They fit well into the case without modding. i paired each cage with a XFX Revo64 5port SATA card and 5 WD 400gig SATA RE drives. Perfect!

Here's the deal with the LED problem: cages that are marked Rev 2.0 have working activity LEDs and cages that are Rev 1.1 require LEDs to be hooked up to a raid card (i didn't do this so i don't know for sure). i have both revisions and the Rev 2.0 lights works, but the other Rev 1.1 does not.

Overall, a good buy. i had to replace the fans with quieter fans. i have 15 HDs all in 3 cages and they're working fine.

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dontek
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
3/2/2006 8:48:00 AM

Rating + 5 Great Product


Pros: Works great. Individual hard drive activity and fault LEDs. Put one in each of your computers for storage exchange.

Cons: Not really a con, as the fans are designed this way on purpose to provide adequate cooling...

Included Fans are loud and can cause space constraints in some cases, however, fans can be replaced with more quiet ones, or removed entirely if another solution is in place to draw air through the bays.

Do not just remove the fans as your drives will get too hot.

Other Thoughts: I have seen people say these bays are not "true hot swap" as you "have to reboot for the drives to be recognized".

This functionality has nothing to do with the bays. These bays are hot swap, but your SATA controller must also support hot swapping for live drive exchange.

Most SATA controllers built into motherboard do not offer this feature.

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dandirk
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/24/2006 9:00:08 AM

Rating + 4 Works and is cheap


Pros: Holds 5 drives and only uses 3 5.25 bays. Uses only 2 molex power connectors

Cons: Not true hot-swap. You do have to reboot after removing/installing drives.

Other Thoughts: Excellant design and easy to install and use. Other complain about cooling but all 5 of my 400gb seagate drives are cool to the touch (coolerthen normal HDD install). The fan PULLS air out so if you install opposite of your PSU hot air will be ejected through the PSU very quickly.

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schilsound
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/24/2006 3:54:28 AM

Rating + 5 No Backplane?


Pros: Save space in your case, convert from 5 molex connectors to 2 [and balance the load on your PSU], add dedicated cooling to your drives.

This might be the best thing to ever happen to my case- with this rack in the top slot of my case the heat from my drives no longer flows over my mainboard and processor etc...

Cons: requires awareness of airflow and dust situations, must be cleaned every 3 months

Other Thoughts: I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would worry about a backplane for a 3.5" HDD to 5.25" bay soloution. If anyone has need of a backplane they should consider moving up to custom soloutions, get a blade server rack and then have an integrated storage soluotion with a rackmount drive array- THIS is the PERFECT midlevel soloution, and frankly if you need more than 4 connections at a time then you should be doing a different storage soloution

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quietdrive
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
1/19/2006 10:57:42 PM

Rating + 5 Decent Cage


Pros: storage density

Cons: 5 individual SATA connections.
no SAS expander.
fan in back is annoying. i disconnected it.

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peegee
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/12/2006 8:43:16 AM

Rating + 4 good cheap, but has a few issues


Pros: cheap,
takes 5 drives
easy to install

Cons: poor airflow,
noisy fan,
bad backplate design leaks airflow

Other Thoughts: easy to install - as many have noted it goes in with the drive bays VERTICAL not horizontal.

takes two regular molex power connectors and of course 5 SATA leads, all very straightforward, but:

The fan (a 92mm San Ace) is noisy so I swapped it out for a better 92mm one, but a high airflow is needed as you have 5 tightly packed drives here. so you can't get one of the extra quiet low-flo ones.

The design allows air to leak in from around the backplate connectors, so some of the fans draw is 'shorted' from there, rather than through the front, past the drives where its really needed.

I had overheating alert (a beeper is fitted) with the regular fan, and almost no workload to speak of. I set the onboard jumper for the higher setting, swapped out the fan and its been ok since.

still, it's a useful solution if extra HD drives are needed.

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
12/6/2005 10:58:18 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: Easy to install, holds more drives than other cages I have seen in the same amount of space. Looks nice when completely installed in the system. I am using software RAID in Linux so I do not care about the LEDs :-) Airflow is good, I have 5 7200RPM drives inside with no heat issues.

Cons: None come to mind.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
10/31/2005 1:20:01 PM

Rating + 5 Super


Comments: LEDs are driven by RAID card, NOT by electronics on the cage. Leads are supplied for a common-positive, individual-negative setup. Newer 3ware cards work this way. Looking at the card, attach the numbered leads to the top row of LED pins. Leftmost is zero. Details at 3ware's website, 3ware.com, article ID 12498.

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Stumped
Tech Level:
Ownership:
10/20/2005 10:15:12 AM

Rating + 5 LED problems


Comments: This isn't exactly the right forum, but can you guys w/working LEDs clue in the rest of us? What stupid mistake are we making? I've hooked up the leads (with & without "common") to known-working LED connectors & got nothing. (Other than this I'm very happy with the unit)

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
10/17/2005 10:13:01 PM

Rating + 5 great SATA cage


Comments: It's unfortunate other's don't use it to it's capacity. All hd LEDs hooked up to my RAID controller just fine, and I didn't have a problem whatsoever installing. Unit is of solid contruction, and I am waiting to see how the temps and noise are. But I would definitely recommend, so long as you understand that it installs with your hard drives being vertical, not horizontal.

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N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
10/17/2005 10:16:53 AM

Rating + 4 No LEDs, otherwiase OK


Comments: No mounting hardware" -- It's a standard 5 1/4 enclosure, and the screw holes are threaded. You have the cage rotated by 90 degrees.

2) The LEDs on the trays themselves are nonfunctional.

When all is great, LEDs mean nothing, but when you've got trouble they're too important not to have. I'll stick with 3Ware RDC-400.

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TeeJay
Tech Level:
Ownership:
10/13/2005 9:03:48 AM

Rating + 4 Excellent


Comments: Picked up one of these to work with my SuperMicro 942i. It's simply amazing, but I do have a few complaints...

1) The drive LEDS, or lack thereof - SuperMicro included a cable with a lead for each individual HDD LED, but my motherboard/card does not support this. I wish they would have implimented it into the circuitry.

2) The existing fan makes this enclosure a bit larger than I'd like. Removed the fan, as I had a 120mm hot swap right behind the cage anyway, and no more problems.

3) The cable connections are layed out on what I would consider to be the "wrong" side of the enclosure - I'd prefer that it was on the right side. Personal preference, there.

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N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
9/27/2005 10:51:28 AM

Rating + 4 Good little enclosure for the $$$


Comments: Installed and works great. Installed my drive rails on it and it slid right in. Installed 4 Hitachi 80GB in Raid0 and a 300GB Maxtor for Mirror. Only problem is the lights for the individual drives do not work. Called Supermicro and they said that unless the raid controller had pin headers for each drive the lights won't work. Too bad the MB manufatures have not started doing this yet. Overall, great setup, might even buy another later for an external enclosure.

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Don
Tech Level:
Ownership:
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/16/2005 3:59:32 PM

Rating + 3 No mounting hardware


Comments: The quality of this enclosure is top notch - too bad there's no way to mount it in a system and use it.

I ordered this device, four 300GB SATA drives, and a Thermaltake Kandlaf case from NewEgg, and couldn't wait to assemble my new system - only to find that this enclosure is of a proprietary size (somewhere between 3." and 5.25") and does not come with any kind of "rail kit" - standard drive kits don't fit, so as far as I can see I am SOL.

I was also disappointed by the apparent mounting holes - they're just pressed into the metal (no threads) and the included metric screws are too small to grip, and the included SAE screws are too large (and not self tapping) to work either.

I surprised to find such a well engineered device falls down on something as critical as mounting. My guess is that they mount perfectly in SuperMicro cases.

The case included no mounting hardware for drives, the drive enclosure included no mounting hardware - so between $300 of gear I can't use them together.

I'm in contact with both NewEgg and SuperMicro to try and resolve.

1 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
9/2/2005 11:16:27 AM

Rating + 4 No LED's?


Comments: Got one the other day, building a 1.2TB RAID5 right now. For some reason, while the trays have passtrhough-plastic for LED lights, the backplane has NO LED's in the spots where the solder points for them are, so I have *NO LIGHTS* on my unit, on any drive. Is this the case with the rest of you as well? If not, I must replace unit. Visible alarms are a *good* thing.

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N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
8/8/2005 3:54:49 PM

Rating + 5


Comments: Compared to the various SCSI, IDE, and SATA enclosures I've encountered, those made by Supermicro always seem to take the prize, and this unit is no exception:

Very good quality, both in material and construction; excellent ventilation with MORE than adequate airflow; fan monitoring with both visible and audable alarms (which can be disabled, if you so desire), temperature monitoring (again, visible and audable alarms, which you can disable or adjust if necessary)... All and all, this thing rocks!

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Sy-
Tech Level:
Ownership:
7/7/2005 5:08:03 PM

Rating + 4 It Works


Comments: I bought 3 of these for my home tower server. Looking at these pictures I was expecting the drives to mount horizontaly so I would have 15 drives in a row. After unpacking the boxes I realized that these are meant to be mounted vertically which is ok but not as slick looking having 3 rows of 5 drives. NE should really orient their pictures the right way.

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Evadman
Tech Level:
Ownership:
6/19/2005 9:24:05 PM

Rating + 5 Don't be fooled by the price


Comments: I picked a couple of these about 5 months ago now for a 10 way 160gb SATA Raid5 setup. Obviously, there isn't really a way to rate a enclosure besides 'it works' or 'it doesn't work'. Well, this one works. Very well.

No problems, even though I had a drive fail. Easy to swap out without rebooting the machine. The front looks a little chincy, but the looks I get when I bring it to a Lan party are great. Not many people have a 10 way setup, and at about $220 for 2 enclosures, that leaves you about $600 extra to buy some more drives. Heck, an 8 way PCI-X SATA Raid card is down at $200 now. That means with 2 of these, 8 250gb drives, and a RAID card, you are lookiong at a hot swapable 1.75 TB of space for a little over a grand. Sweet.

Be the king of the Lan Party.

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kurt
Tech Level:
Ownership:
5/21/2005 7:51:13 PM

Rating + 5 very nice!


Comments: I've been using this for a month now, and it's a very good product. It does have some problems with seating (definitly not designed for hard server duty, but good for home/light use).

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N/A
Tech Level:
Ownership:
4/27/2005 1:29:24 AM

Rating + 5


Comments: This rack works flawlessly and without a hitch. One of the best upgrades I've ever done.

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3/19/2005 9:39:05 AM

Rating + 4 Great value


Comments: Overall, this is a great enclousure. Couple of notes though:
- The fan is loud. Replaced it with a quieter 8cm fan and fan controller. Much better now and drives are still cool.
- If you have a case with metal guides or rails in the 5 1/4" cage you may have to do some modifications to the case in order to fit the enclosure. The insides of the cage have to be completely smooth.

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11/18/2004 11:04:21 AM

Rating + 5 Great choice


Comments: This is a great enclosure. The fan is a tornado without being too loud. It just flat out moves some air. Very easy install. Drives stay nice and cool. Inexpensive and does its job excellent.

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9/3/2004 10:34:38 PM

Rating + 5 Killer enclosure


Comments: Don't be fooled by the price, awesome enclosure! Great quailty and then fan really helps to pull fresh clean cool are in over the bays, keep my 5x200 Seagate's nice and cool :)

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8/10/2004 6:54:19 AM

Rating + 5


Comments: Excellent SATA drive enclosure. I had an extremely easy time installing it and its still working great.

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