Making a 68 pin drive removable?

[Demon-Xanth]

I was looking at making a few (about 5) of my hard drives that are currently just warming up a case removable. Taking a look at mobile racks yeilds some $55+ parts for drives worth about $20. (9GB) Most of them have an identical pinout (2 are Barracuda 9, 2 Barracuda 9LP, and one a Viking II)

So I'm considering hacking a 3.5"-5.25" bay converter and making the bare drives plug into them like a PCMCIA card would plug into it's slot. I know it wouldn't be hot swappable, but is this something feasable? And if it is, how would I somehow lock in the connectors?

Any advice?

 

[Demon-Xanth]

^

 

[dullard]

I'm not sure the reason you want to hang onto those drives (Labeled at Very loud and Hot by StorageReview - plus they are not very fast). Find a hot deal on a great ATA drive and for $75 you'll have tons more storage space, drastically reduced heat, less noise, and probably faster speed as well. I realize that SCSI drives are reliable and do often last 5+ years. But I don't know anyone who wants to keep holding on to 5+ year old computer technology. Just let them go. Have a nice ceremony and put them out to pasture to live the rest of their live comfortably...

Back to your question. I wasn't quite sure if I understand your question right. Do you want something that lets you mount the SCSI cable at the back of the bay, slide a SCSI drive into the hacked bay converter, and then slide back until it locks into the cable? That is how I read your question. If so, that would be quite difficult, and if it could be done you are probably looking at a lot of expense or at least a lot of hard labor getting everything lined up. If that isn't what you are asking about, then could you explain a bit better please? If it were me, you know I'd let the drives go. But the second option is just hack a door onto the drive bay, have it open up so you can reach in and pull the SCSI cable out of the case, set the drive onto your desk and manually connect. When you are done, just push the cable back and close the door. So much easier to do that - I've done it for a whole year - and the drives really don't care if they sit on a desktop while running.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

The reason why I'm keeping them around is that it'd 40GB or so worth of places to put stuff. And cash is a little on the tight side right about now. My desk space is currently taken up by monitors. And one of the computers is a semi-mobile one that uses a TV for it's display. Right now they'd be more useful as removable storage than non-removable storage.

Maybe I can use some slides from a 5.25" floppy drive and have the tray pull out and set the drive on some pins (held in by the inability to go up once slid in). And have the cables captured so they slide with the drive. (w/ about 1" of play)

 

[Woodie]

Why don't you just acquire (purchase from me) a Compaq drive tower w/ some drives/trays already in it? If you don't like the drives I have, just bolt your drives to the trays, and you've got it. Full tower case, not very quiet, but will take up to 7 drives on trays.

Price negotiable, but I think we can get it into the $ range for the hacked setup you mentioned.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Heh heh, $ range for hacked setup: $0.00, wanna match it?

I actually have the drives, and they're in use (very light use), I was just hoping to cut down on the amount of heat and noise being created w/o being useful. I was just thinking of something that'd take up an unused bay and not a whole new fixture.

Thanks for the offer though.