Question 1

How is this cage secured to chassis?  Pictures reveal no mounting holes.

Accepted Answer

if you are looking at the photos where the 5 HD bays are positioned horizontally, the mounting holes are on the top & bottom sides.  it's 3 rows of standard 5.25" mounting pattern.  when installed in a standard tower case, the drive bays on this will be positioned vertically, rather than horizontally.

Question 2

OK so I understand what this cage does. Can I have my HDs in a raid 5  configuration? What is the connection between the cage and my server?

Accepted Answer

These trays are only that: trays for your HD's. You can run any type of RAID you want in these trays, but you'll need the hardware to do it, which is not what these trays are. This cage does not split data connections; there are 5 data ports for each of the 5 bays.

The connection (if I took the meaning of your question correctly) to your server - or RAID controller - is simply routing the data cables.

I used SAS Controllers paired with 1-to-4 splitter cables for my setup.

If you have 5 unused SATA ports on your MB, you could easily just run one data cable each and you'd be good to go, depending on the capabilities of your MB.

Question 3

The manufacturers website notes that this is "3TB Hard Drives Compatible"

Is this the largest capacity HD that can be used with this tray?

Accepted Answer

Since this cage simply does a passthrough of the sata connections to the back of the cage you can use any SATA/SAS HDD in this that you want. As long as it is full height and 3.5"

Question 4

I want to replace the fan but the connector doesn't fit...will the unit work without the fan plugged in?  The replacement will plug into the mobo.

Accepted Answer

This was my exact use case as well... The built in fan has limited control (and louder than I like) so I wanted more control using my own fan.  The unit does work without the included fan (no alarms or anything), but given the number of drives and heat generation you WILL need active cooling.  Here is what I did:  I removed the included fan, installed a nice 80 MM Panaflo (standard 3 pin header) and connected that fan to one of the motherboard headers.   I can now control the speed of the fan from the mobo software.   I keep my fan running at about 50% (about 1200 RPM) and that keeps my 5 3.5" drives just warm-to-the-touch under moderate load.  One more note: the standard 80mm fan is a bit thicker than whats included in the iStar, so I left the fan shell off, and the screws are just long enough to hold the fan in.  Just tape up the gap around the fan if you don't use the shell.

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