"Andy Axnot" wrote in message
...
"John H." wrote in message
...
Anyone have any recommendations for removable IDE drive bays on a home
system?
Thanks --JH
I see Rod Speed has technical objections to these, and I have heard
similar
objections from other technically savvy people.
Well, sometimes ignorance is bliss. Not knowing any better, I use the
cheap (about $8) mobile racks from Genica, available at, for instance:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN210
I have used these for several years, mostly with Win98SE, without any
great
problems that I'm aware of. There were a couple of instances of
particular
computers not finding particular drives on boot up. That is, a particular
(usually older) hard drive might not be detected in one computer while
another computer found it. I don't know why this was and didn't have the
time to hunt down an explanation. Perhaps one will be offered in this
thread. Mostly I have had no problems moving data from one computer to
another, and friends and I will occasionally swap data this way.
I use them basically for backups and Ghost images. I then remove the
trays
and store them in a closet. I do not attempt to hot swap them (i.e.,
insert
or remove with power applied). I insert or remove trays with the computer
powered down. When I insert a tray and power up the computer, the OS
finds
the drive and its partitions are available.
These racks I use are quite cheap and I don't think they would stand up to
abuse, and they don't help drive heat dissipation any. Maybe the aluminum
racks would be better in this regard. Still, these do the job for me. I
have transferred data among computers using them, restored back to a
known
good state from a Ghost image, etc., so I'm satisfied.
Andy
I'm with Andy. They are cheap, and the transfer rate is way higher than a
USB2
or firewire connected drive.
I've hotswapped mine under XP with no problems (by disabling within Device
Manager).
Mine are the ViPower ATA/133 IDE cadies (plastic). They have 3 fans, so heat
doesn't seem to be an issue.