iStarUSAGroup 3x5.25 to 5x3.5 Trayless Black (BPN-DE350SS-BLACK)

I purchased this iStarUSA 5-in-3 trayless hotswap cage to add 5 more drive bays to my Supermicro CSE-743T-500B case. It fits this case very well. One thing to keep in mind is that this particular drive cage is not compatible with cases that have the metal tabs at the bottom of each 5.25" bay. I've heard of others bending these tabs on their case to make it fit, but fortunately Supermicro made the tabs spring-loaded.I did have trouble getting my metal icydock 2.5"-to-3.5" adapter to fit in one of the slots, but the cheap plastic version worked fine. The metal adapter wouldn't insert fully in order to get the door closed on the hotswap bay. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the adapter or the hotswap cage. All of my other 3.5" SATA drives fit fine.The hotswap cage seems to be quite sturdy and feels well-built. It's made of aluminium and has aluminium doors with locks to keep the the children from accidentally ejecting the drives. I'm sure the locks won't keep someone out that's determined, but at least it provides some level of security against accidental drive removals.I can't comment on the fan since the 4 80mm fans on my CSE-743T-500B case are louder than this fan is with the 'low' speed selected. Also, with this case I could probably get away with removing the fan altogether since it has such strong front-to-back airflow already.In all, while fairly expensive, I would recommend this hotswap cage over the other options on the market and I would buy it again.

Its not a bad unit, but two big things for me was noise and noise. The included fan is crazy loud, even on the low mode, so to fix this I replaced it with a noctua unit (not a drop-in option so had to get creative). Then there was still a lot more noise than before adding the hot swap cage, it was the hard drives as its metal to metal. I really good cage design IMO would have some kind of rubbery lining or construction, but this is all metal and the HDDs were creating a lot of noise so to fix this I put electrical tape along the edges of the HDDs. So now after replacing the fan and lining the HDDs, finally the computer isn't audible all throughout the house. Another nice design addition would be filtration capability. I suppose for the money its a good unit and thus the 4 start vs a 3 star- with a lack of what seems to be any units that are better one just has to make a unit like this work. Eventually SSDs will be so affordable the only issue will be fan noise on units like this and that is pretty easy to fix.

I am very happy with this drive enclosure. The enclosure looks very nice, feels very solid and so far runs fine in my home ESX server running RAID 6 with an LSI controller. I would think the only thing that would ever break on this (other than the fan) might be the little tab that keeps the doors closed (knock on wood).One more very nice feature of this enclosure is that your HDD slides in with no special rails or caddy. I will upload a picture of my enclosure installed with a drive sliding in.p.s. This enclosure mounts with the drives vertical as shown in the picture, however, I believe mine is mounted upside-down (this was done because it was the only way my drive mounting rails would line up).

Very good quality. Fit all my needs. My only complain about this product is the, is very loud to be a small fan. I going to look for a replacement if any. For those who want to install this product inside a case probably you can disconnect the fan and let the case's fans do the cooling job.

I have been looking for a solution the would allow me to install a maximum number of hard drives in a system. The solution was 2 fold. The proper size computer case and the proper trayless hard drive chassis. This iStarUsa is perfect. I was able to install 4 of these in the Antec Twelve hundred V3 case for a total of 20 3.5" hard drives. Keep in mind that you may have to cut the metal tabs in the case to allow this unit to be installed. This unit was perfect for my needs and recommend it to anyone who doesn't look forward to opening their case to remove, replace, test a hard drive.As a bonus you get an individual LEDs that indicated power and activity on each drive, not just the one LED on the case. Since the drives sit vertically, not sure how a slim 3.5" drive would function as there is no method of keeping it to the side where the rear SATA and power connectors are. The connectors would support the backup of the drive, but there is nothing in the front; you may have to rig something up. The fan on the back keeps the drives running cool. However, I did replace the fans with quieter ones, but had to purchase screws.If I was asked to recommend any improvements, I would suggest a quieter fan and slightly larger LEDs so I can see them better from a distance. On a side note, I would recommend that for this model and their 3 in 2 model the use of a more standard fan size fan - (80mm x 80 mm x 25.4mm). Be easier to replace them. I received the product as promised on a timely manner and free shipping. Thank You!