2.5" trayless hot swap SATA mobile rack backplane dying?

[mxnerd]

Got a backplane exactly like this for a few years.

Recently it seems if my Hitachi 750GB 2.5" HDD was in the tray, the disk sometime will have very loud clicking sound, and I'll see ATAPI error message in the event viewer. No S.M.A.R.T. errors for the disk.

Changing molex/sata power connectors and SATA cables/ports didn't help. It seems that PSU could not supply enough power to the backplane.

But if I removed the disk from the backplane, the clicking sound seems disappeared an no ATAPI error messages.

Question is: what causes this? The temperature is cool, the power connector looks fine. Why a simple device like this will go bad?

Time to throw it away?