Adding Hard Drive Bays

[Research]

Hi!

Need to add an additional 200 GB SATA Seagate, but do not have any bays remaining. Is there something available which can be attached / hang-on to the existing bays / case and hold the hard drive?

I have an Antec case ... On a side not I was wondering if there is an extension cable to extend/duplicate a cable from the power supply.

Has anybody done/seen that?

Thanks!!

 

[compfreak999]

your cd rom bays?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Cyberguys.com and others sell power cable splitters that add another 6" - 9".

For the hard drive, you can use a 5.25" bay and a holder or pair of metal pieces that make a 3.5" fit.

If you don't have any 5.25" bays you could also use something like insulated wire to attach the extra drive, you just need to be careful then about moving your case.

 

[Frew]

You could go external.

 

[Research]

Originally posted by: compfreak999
your cd rom bays?

Already taken .... I zip drive + 1 Floppy + 1 DVD Writer + 1 CD Writer

 

[Research]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Cyberguys.com and others sell power cable splitters that add another 6" - 9".

For the hard drive, you can use a 5.25" bay and a holder or pair of metal pieces that make a 3.5" fit.

If you don't have any 5.25" bays you could also use something like insulated wire to attach the extra drive, you just need to be careful then about moving your case.

Thanks for the splitter idea...

For the hard drive, I already have many of those 5.25" bay adapters ... but not 5.25 bay ...

 

[Research]

Originally posted by: LeadFrog
You could go external.

Don't want to go external ... will loose the power of SATA

 

[KenSr]

Move one of your optical drives to external USB, and use that slot, or better yet go external with the Zip or floppy they are not SATA
Ken

 

[oneshot47]

If you're good with your hands and have a spot in the bottom of the case you could mount some brackets for putting a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay to the bottom of the case. I'm looking at a pair of brackets I have here and it looks easy enough to drill some holes throught the bottom of the case. Just have to be sure and measure and line it up good.

 

[Research]

Originally posted by: oneshot47
If you're good with your hands and have a spot in the bottom of the case you could mount some brackets for putting a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay to the bottom of the case. I'm looking at a pair of brackets I have here and it looks easy enough to drill some holes throught the bottom of the case. Just have to be sure and measure and line it up good.

Excellent idea .. there is plenty of space in the bottom of the case ... is there some readymade mounting stuff like that available at new-egg etc?

 

[aircooled]

Do you still really need the ZIP drive?

 

[oneshot47]

Originally posted by: Research

Originally posted by: oneshot47
If you're good with your hands and have a spot in the bottom of the case you could mount some brackets for putting a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay to the bottom of the case. I'm looking at a pair of brackets I have here and it looks easy enough to drill some holes throught the bottom of the case. Just have to be sure and measure and line it up good.

Excellent idea .. there is plenty of space in the bottom of the case ... is there some readymade mounting stuff like that available at new-egg etc?

I don't know...like I said I've just got an old pair of 3.5 to 5.25 adapters here that have screw holes in the bottom. I'd say you can just measure and drill the holes on the bottom somewhere, and maybe put a little rubber strip or something between the case and the adapters. Use something like these (I know its a 10 pack but you get the idea). If you wanted to do it without those you could also just drill holes corresponding to the bottom mounting holes in the drive, and get some rubber grommets to protect it from the case.

 

[teutonicknight]

Firewire 800...

 

[Research]

Thanks everybody for the great ideas...

So I guess I've the following order of preference:

1. Try to find adapter componenets and put hard-drive inside the case

2. Remove Zip drive .... back-up all my old zip drives on a dvd

3. Get an external firewire/usb enclosure for the hard drive

4. Get an external firewire/usb hard drive

The first two options will let me use SATA which is what I really want to try .... Lemme know if you agree ....

 

[oneshot47]

Sounds like a plan

 

[zephyrprime]

I've seen such a thing at compusa. It was 2 metal plates that hung off of an existing standard 3.5" drive cage and allowed you to accomodate additional drives. It may not fit all systems but it's worth a shot.

 

[SLOviper]

I had this same dillema awhile back so I rummaged through my bin of miscellaneous computer parts and found a plastic adapter that came with one of those front panel USB/FW/Media Card thingies. It was so I could mount the 3.5" part in a 5.25" bay. Since the hard drive is 3.5", I just mounted the hard drive in the plastic thing and used a large piece of double sided tape to affix it (rather permanently as it turns out) to the floor of my case. Since the thing was plastic, I didn't have to worry about shorting anything and it actually allowed me to locate the drive just behind my intake fan allowing for some additional cooling. I normally keep my comp standing upright, but the tape easily holds the drive in place when I do move/tip the case.

If you don't have one of those plastic adapters, fabricating one (or something very similar) should be quite simple.

Just one more option for you in addition to all the others!

 

[airis2001]

In the June 2004 issue of Maximum PC (p. 83) there was a review of an externtal SATA drive. You plugged it in to your mobo sata interface and it shipped with a pass through adapter mounted on a bracket you installed in teh back of your case. You pugged the cable from the mobo in to the passthrough adatper then another cable from that in to the drive. The webiste is www.cmsprouducts.com. It was a 200gb drive but a pricy $550 list.

 

[Research]

Guys,

I tried a few things. Could not find the right adapter to mount a my drives. Actually, now I'm getting greedy.... I want to mount 2 SATA hard drives in RAID 0 + 1 extra (old) hard-drive that I already have ... alongwith some hard-drive fans/coolers. I do have an old computer bay, but that is 5 drive-bay ... a little too tall for the space I have inside my case.

Somehow, I don't want to go external and lose SATA ... at the same time ..., can't get rid of my ZIP drive ... as it will release space for only one hard drive. Since I'll be investing $100 in a new power supply, I might very well expand my system to use it. So now I'm looking for a hard drive bay accommodating three hard drives which I can screw to the bottom of my case.....

 

[Research]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
I've seen such a thing at compusa. It was 2 metal plates that hung off of an existing standard 3.5" drive cage and allowed you to accomodate additional drives. It may not fit all systems but it's worth a shot.

Are you talking about something like this ?

 

[Research]

You know, just found

this!

Zalman NP(Noise Prevention)Heatpipe HDD Cooler.

Not only cools the hard-drive but also gives you convenience to install in the base of the case!


27.99 at new-egg (I think a bit pricy ... but serves my purpose!)


Linky

 

[trexpesto]

If you are real broke, there's superglue, silicone, wood... But I'd switch the new sata into the drive bay and use the glue on an older, cheaper one.

 

[Schnook121]

you could always just buy a bigger case........

 

[Metron]

Buy this case... or any with more slots! You have room for 4x5.25" optical or zip drives, 2x3.5" floppies, and 4x3.5" hard drives. Keeping all of your existing drives (and 2 SATA hard drives), you'll still have room for another optical, another floppy, and 2 more hard drives.

I can't beleive that Antec doesn't have more room...

 

[HardcoreRobot]

do you need the cd-writer? i would expect your dvd-writer can prolly do it too. if i ran out of room in my case, i would just let the harddrive sit at teh bottom of my case only real good reason to mount them afaik is to reduce noise from vibrations. my comp is so loud i dont think i would notice!

after googling for a while, THIS is what I came upon. if you dont want to do what i mentioned above, i think this is a good solution if you have the extra space at the bottom to undermount.