Customer Reviews

StarTech.com 2 Drive 2.5-Inch Trayless Hot Swap SATA Mobile Rack Backplane HSB220SAT25B (Black)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I definitely like these
I can't say whether or not similar devices as these from other manufacturers are better, but so far (over a year now) I am very satisfied with all of the ones I own.

they're very sturdy
the latch is pretty good
I haven't had any problems with drives connecting physically

Not sure what else to say
The only possible draw back is occasionally having to buy some sort of mounting framework to get it to fit in a 5.25" drive slot rather than the rarer 3.5" slots

This device does exactly what it's supposed to do for my application. The tray comes with all of the screws, power and data cables needed to install and connect the tray to your system. My case is tool-less so I didn't need to use the included screws but am glad they came with it. I use this device with one drive as my main O/S and the other for troubleshooting other laptop drives or copying data to my internal storage array. The device says it's supports SATA hot-Swap but my motherboard or internal array controller doesn't so I won't be trying that functionality.

The latch mechanisms on the tray works great when a drive is installed but one always seems to get a little stuck when a drive is not present in the bay and I have to use both hands to get it open, not a show stopper for me, but i can see how it could cause a little trouble for some. Maybe I just need to readjust part of the metal housing that the latch uses to lock the drive in the tray to fix the problem, but I'm fine with the way it works since it will keep the kids from opening the tray and putting objects in them.

If you think you'd like to have two 500-GB drives slipped into your computer's floppy-disk (1.4-MB) 3.5" slot, then this is the way to do it. It's fairly well-built, very well designed, and very easy to install. All screws are provided; and fit/finish is first-class.

You don't need any accessory power leads (as in the LP4 to 2 SATA power splitter), because the unit comes with special SATA power leads with four additional wires to a connector for each drive bay to drive blue (disk present) and red (drive active) LED indicators. The blue's a little bright, but not bad. The red becomes magenta as it mixes with the blue LED which is on all the time a drive is installed in the bay.

This is a terrific product. I bought a second unit for another install because it's so good. If you don't need extra internal drive space, don't bother, but if you would like removable storage for off-line backup (esp. home video), definitely consider this economical and practical accessory. At $72 for 320 GB (late 2009), WD Scorpio Black 2.5" drives are cheap and reliable storage. Alternatively, go ahead and purchase, record, and store 71 DVD disks.

I've owned this drive bay for a year and a half. It works as expected and is very convenient for rotating-media 2.5" drives. Recently, I inserted an OCZ Vertex 2 solid state drive, and the fit was tight. When I tried to eject the SSD, the flimsy plastic lever that ejects the drive broke, so now I have only a single usable drive bay.

I cannot guess the technical skill of the other reviewers, but this item claims to be hot-swap which means you leave the power on and change the drives. By design, every hard drive I tried in this item would not go in smoothly and refused to come out until I physically removed the device from the computer and pried the drives out. This forces me to have to power off the computer which makes this item non-hot-swap. I think the reviews are posted either by the seller or the manufacturer in order to dupe people into buying this poorly designed junk. I am in the process of returning mine to the seller for a refund.