Question 1

Does the key turn on and off each individual bay separately?

Accepted Answer

the key has nothing to do with the power to the bay, the key simply locks the door to keep the drive from being removed.

all 5 bays are constantly powered, and if you have all 5 sata cables connected then they will be connected. theres no way to power off single drives.

Question 2

What is the HHD total capacity per drive bay?

Accepted Answer

HDD capacity would depend on the OS/MB/Drivers and not the drive bay itself. If the drive works directly attached to the SATA connector on the MB, it should run in the drive bay.  In mine, I have one 250MB SSD  (with a 2.5-5.25 adapter), one 1TB HDD, two 2TB HDD's and one 8TB HDD. I'm running an old Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H / AMD Phenom II 940x4 and Windows 10 Pro 64 bit.

Question 3

Can this be set external (Standalone) and if so, how is it then powered?

Accepted Answer

No, wasn't designed for it. I suppose you could kludge i by running two very long cables from your PSU and 5 very long SATA cables from your mother board, but it would be very ugly, unreliable, and probably unsafe. I wouldn't recommend it.

Question 4

What ATX cases is this enclosure compatible with?

Accepted Answer

It's compatible with any case that has 3x 5.25 bays, however you may need to make some modifications.  The case I used had "shelves" for each of the drives, which would have blocked this cage - once the tabs were bent out of the way, this fit easily.  The tabs are usually visible on pictures of the drive bays, although I did contact some of the manufacturers to ask.

FYI, the pictures are misleading - the 5.25 inches is across the 5 drive bays; the doors lift up, not across.  Rotate the picture 90 degrees for a more accurate representation.

Questions & Answers