Yeah, I too have a bunch of these and do not have any bad reports. The fans fail, but I have had them a long time, so that is to be expected. I have never had a speed problem. I stopped using them because of cost. If you are putting together lots of drives, the 24/48/60 drive units are cheaper than bolting these in, and the backplane is nicer than lots of cables. If you just need 5-10 drives, these are great.

Thanks for the insight guys. I will probably pick up one or two of these to start. I can fit 3, but i won't have that many drives to start, something i can grow into. Just need to figure out where i'm going to put the server itself so i can decide if i want to swap the fans for something quieter or not

On 3/1/2018 at 4:26 PM, void4ever said:

Thanks for the insight guys. I will probably pick up one or two of these to start. I can fit 3, but i won't have that many drives to start, something i can grow into. Just need to figure out where i'm going to put the server itself so i can decide if i want to swap the fans for something quieter or not

 

The fans are not that loud IMO. And the sound is more of air movement than squeaking, mechanical sound. You might try them out as swapping out is always possible afterwards. They are 92mm fans BTW.

I picked up on of these and decided to swap out the fan, as it was a little loud, with an Artic F9 fan (43 cfm) and notice the hard drive temps on the high side 35 - 40 degrees. I haven't tried with the stock fan. BTW, drives are HSGT 6TBs. Within normal paramters?

Edited March 12, 20188 yr by joelones

I run the stock fan and it's a lot cooler than that - high 20's, low 30's.

On 9/8/2017 at 5:31 PM, SSD said:

Yes - you just need to fold back the metal tabs separating the 5.25" slots with a long neck C-clamp. Very easy to do.

Thank you for offering this solution. I haven't come across a computer case that DID NOT have those metal tabs in the 5.25" bays. 

Hi all,

 

Just want to provide some feedback on Diversity-it (https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-CSE-M35T-1B-5-x-3-5-Hot-Swap-SATA-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-/172642519582?hash=item28324bca1e:g:c7oAAOSwXj5XGSS3)

 

I couldn't be happier with the service. I bought two drive cages and they arrived very well packaged. Upon fitting them, I found that the LED on one of the trays was not lighting up with disk activity. I contacted them and asked for a new drive tray. I offered to pay for postage but they shipped me two without question and without me having to pay anything further.

 

I'm not associated with them in any way, but their service went well above and beyond what I expected in terms of packaging, responsiveness and shipping of replacement trays and I'd like to give credit where it's due.

 

So if you're looking for drive cages, I can recommend them.

Edited April 9, 20188 yr by PeteB

Weird question.  I have picked up a used dell 2950.  Was thinking of using it till I can build new server.  Issue I have is this 2950 only has 2.5” sas slots.    Can I use this cage sitting to side of case and somehow run the backplane cable to the motherboard of the dell?    I have 5 3.5” drives so this would be perfect.   Please advise.  

On 5/17/2018 at 4:17 AM, bphillips330 said:

Weird question.  I have picked up a used dell 2950.  Was thinking of using it till I can build new server.  Issue I have is this 2950 only has 2.5” sas slots.    Can I use this cage sitting to side of case and somehow run the backplane cable to the motherboard of the dell?    I have 5 3.5” drives so this would be perfect.   Please advise.  

 

The Supermicro cage needs a 4U height so if the 2950 is a 2U then I'm pretty sure it won't fit. 

 

I've put these cages in a Rosewill RSV-4500 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091IZ1ZG) as well as an Antec 1200... across all my systems I have 12 of these.  Only problem I have with the Rosewill is the drives are horizontal and upside down if you want to get 3 of these cages in there because of the way it deals with installation.  For the Antec, the drives are vertical.

 

Also, I recently picked up 3 of these on Newegg (from Newegg itself, not a third party) on sale for $82 each (before tax+shipping), so outside of eBay that's what I'd consider a "going rate" unless I was in a hurry to get one.

 

On 9/8/2017 at 11:50 AM, SSD said:

I've been recommending these cages for users wanting to build a server. They eliminate the most common problem users have, and that is knocking cables loose while adding or exchanging drives. Over time, the ability to painlessly swap in and out drives, and even swap problematic drives between ports to isolate problems, is priceless.

 

Consider this all to common scenario. You want to replace a drive (maybe it is failing, or maybe just want to upsize it). You open the case and swap out the old and swap in the new. In the process, you can't help but touch a few cables with the back of your hand. No harm done. You put the server back together. Boot up. Everything looks good. You start the drive rebuild. 2 hours later you check on progress. The array is offline. A different disk in your array is showing a red + (it has dropped offline). Looking in the logs you see that it was getting link resets and ultimately the drive dropped offline. One of those cables you thought you harmlessly touched - it wasn't harmless. Even the slightest skewing of a cable can create an intermittent connection. You now have a more complicated recovery to do, and if you make a mistake, could easily lose data.

 

Hot-swap cages are not the cure - they are the vaccine. Once you have them and they are burned in, this should never happen to you.

 

These are a pretty good deal. $67 delivered. And you can make an offer (looking at purchase history looks like seller has been accepting most offers).

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-CSE-M35T-1B-5-x-3-5-Hot-Swap-SATA-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-/172642519582?hash=item28324bca1e:g:c7oAAOSwXj5XGSS3

 

Seller has 100% positive feedback.

 

These particular cages are highly recommended by me. I have a bunch of them and they work flawlessly. They have 92mm fans that cool quite well. and these can be swapped for quieter fans if needed. Three of these together with an Antec 900 or similar case, gives you an excellent 15 drive case for an unRAID server.

 

I’m seriously thinking about doing exactly what you did later this year. It looks like the most space efficient and mass density setup I have found that’s not in a rack. I’m probably going to buy two of the 2.5” adapter trays (MCP-220-00080-0B) which will give me 2 x 2.5” drives and 13 x 3.5” drives where all are hotswappable. I have a couple of points/questions though.

 

1. The link you provided is old and that seller is no longer selling them. I did find a new seller though: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-CSE-M35T-1B-5-x-3-5-Hot-Swap-SAS-SATA-Drive-Enclosure-with-Screws/391459095707?epid=867385290&hash=item5b24c7c49b:g:jRAAAOSwxehXOgXt

 

2. What size motherboard did you use in your setup? Looking at the dimensions for a standard ATX motherboard, the Antec 900, and the CSE-M35T-1B, it looks like there will be some overlap with the motherboard and the fan of the hard drive cage. Did the fan interfere with your 24 pin connector or ram since they are placed on the right side of the motherboard? If interference is a possible problem, I might have go with a mATX board with the ram on top of the motherboard.

 

3. How is cable management for the Antec 900 behind the motherboard? Is there enough space for the SATA cables and molecules power connectors?

 

4. I’m planning on buying a 550W or 650W Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold PSU which comes with 4 possible SATA/Molex power cable ports. Should I just use 3 of the ports to give three independent Molex connections to the hard drive cages? I hope that makes sense.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

What kind of adapter could you use to put an SSD into one of the bays on this enclosure?

On 4/4/2019 at 1:55 PM, ramblinreck47 said:

I’m seriously thinking about doing exactly what you did later this year. It looks like the most space efficient and mass density setup I have found that’s not in a rack. I’m probably going to buy two of the 2.5” adapter trays (MCP-220-00080-0B) which will give me 2 x 2.5” drives and 13 x 3.5” drives where all are hotswappable. I have a couple of points/questions though.

 

1. The link you provided is old and that seller is no longer selling them. I did find a new seller though: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-CSE-M35T-1B-5-x-3-5-Hot-Swap-SAS-SATA-Drive-Enclosure-with-Screws/391459095707?epid=867385290&hash=item5b24c7c49b:g:jRAAAOSwxehXOgXt

 

2. What size motherboard did you use in your setup? Looking at the dimensions for a standard ATX motherboard, the Antec 900, and the CSE-M35T-1B, it looks like there will be some overlap with the motherboard and the fan of the hard drive cage. Did the fan interfere with your 24 pin connector or ram since they are placed on the right side of the motherboard? If interference is a possible problem, I might have go with a mATX board with the ram on top of the motherboard.

 

3. How is cable management for the Antec 900 behind the motherboard? Is there enough space for the SATA cables and molecules power connectors?

 

4. I’m planning on buying a 550W or 650W Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold PSU which comes with 4 possible SATA/Molex power cable ports. Should I just use 3 of the ports to give three independent Molex connections to the hard drive cages? I hope that makes sense.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

I made the mistake of getting a standard ATX board to use a couple of these cages in a Sharkoon T9 case. As you say, there is an overlap of the cage fans over the end of the motherboard. Made sure I got a much narrower one but it had to be mATX which is no problem (MSI A32M-A PRO Max). It fits and that was all that I was concerned about.

Looking for a third one now. They work great and are super quiet with replacement Nanoxia fans. Never tried them with the original ones.