Question 1

can both the 2.5 and 3.5 be used at the same time?  I cant see the rear of the product very clearly but it looks like there is a common connection between the 2.5 and the 3.5 in bay.  looks like power but not 100% sure.

Accepted Answer

They are jumpered via one molex connector, so if you want to use both at the same time you need 2 use 2 molex connectors and remove the jumper. It can be done, but not by default

Question 2

Are the drives accessible through USB interface?  In other words if I don't want to hook the sata cable up, can I see the drives if only the USB 3.0 cable is hooked into the motherboard?

Accepted Answer

No. The HD's plug into the sata pcb's in the drive caddys. The usb ports go directly to the usb cables. Alot of devices like this have usb ports on em to make use of the usb headers on motherboards.

Question 3

So I just installed the Max 5 duo today in a win 7 ultimate machine with essentially a brand new build.

My issue is I have the C drive, a D drive that is also in an older Tray-less drive, and then the E drive in the Max Duo.

--If I start the machine with the max on, all drives show up fine. I can then "Safe eject" the Max drive, and turn off the Max, leaving the disk plugged in but off.

Then, if I turn on the Max drive again, the D drive disappears and no sign of the E drive either. I then go into Device manager to scan disks and the Max drive immediately mounts, without the D drive. Device manager does not see the D drive. Disk management shows the D drive, disk 2, completely missing from the lineup. If i hit rescan disks under disk management nothing comes up.

If I then turn off the Max Drive, manually eject the old trayless "missing" D drive and reinsert it, it shows up in device manager and eventually also in the computer.

I have tried changing to full permissions, I have tried giving the Max drive a path letter of M to make sure there is no conflict, and same results.

So it appears when i turn on the MAX I see in Disk Management my D drive is kicked out of Disk 1 and the MAx drive takes its place. Disk 2 in Disk management is strangely absent....?

help.....

Accepted Answer

The problem, as described, does NOT appear to be with the Max Duo.

If I was troubleshooting this, the fact that powering on/off a drive affects a different drive on a different SATA port indicates problems elsewhere: 
1) Check that the drives' power wires are on different cables from the power supply. Not too likely, but power surges as the drives power on/off could affect other drives on the same power branch.
2) Check the SATA cables themselves. For troubleshooting purposes, make sure to connect direct to the SATA ports, with no port expanders or daisy-chaining. The SATA connectors should securely connect and snap into the ports, on both ends.
3) The SATA ports themselves, or their drivers (Most likely in my opinion). Since SATA ports are independent, activity on one port affecting another port without external interference indicates a problem internal to the controller, or (potentially) with the drivers. This would most likely be seen if using an add-on SATA controller and not the one built into the chipset, as they are the most linkely to have dodgy hardware and/or drivers.
If you are using an add-on controller, try using the chipset's SATA controller instead. If you are using the chipset's SATA controller, try using different ports for your ejectable drives.

I hope this helps.

Brand	Thermaltake
Model	ST0026Z
Color	Black

Mobile Rack Drives Support	2.5" & 3.5" Drives to 1 x 5.25" Bay
Mobile Rack Interface	SATA I/II/III
Specifications	Enclosure Interface - SATA I/II/III (For Drives) - USB 3.0 internal 20 pin (For 2x USB 3.0 Ports) Transfer Rate - Up to SATA 6G HDD Compatible - 2.5" HDD or SSD x1 - 3.5" HDD or SSD x1 HDD Capacity - 3TB+ OS Compatible - Windows XP, 2000, Vista, 7 + - Mac OS X Material - Steel Framing, Plastic bezel Power - SATA Power x1 Dimension - 193 x 150 x 43 mm Weight - 475g

Thermaltake ST0026Z Max 5 Duo SATA HDD Rack

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Item#: N82E16817998185