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Creative Uses For Extra Drive Bays?
sheetsda writes "For many years now PC cases have included 3 or 4 or even more external 5.25 inch drive bays. These days with the proliferation of USB thumb drives and gigabit Ethernet, even my DVD drive has been gathering dust since OS-install-time. Before that when combination CD-RW and DVD drives were nonexistent or expensive that still leaves and extra drive bay or two. What exceptionally inventive, useful, or clever uses have the community found for this extra space? Bonus geek cred for solutions making use of the power rails inside the case."
'Nuff said.
You can read a little about it here: http://wiki.auroralinux.net/wiki/SPARCplug
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
for cheap.
I simply tuck the excess ribbon and power cables in the empty drive bays. Even easier if you get some cable management clips, the kind with adhesive to stick to the wall of the bays. This way you maximize airflow and such.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Three 5.25" drive bays above each other can hold a case with four 3.5" drive bays and a 120mm fan. Thermaltake sells them, as do zillions of other companies.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Bonus geek cred: Heated.
Card readers / more front ports
If you have old-ish disks around, you can build a RAID array (0, 5, whatever). It will increase the performance of your machine.
For some reason I always liked how 5"1/4 bays provided a lot of space in between 3"1/2 disks, which is probably better in terms of heat management. I remember putting up to 10 disks in a medium tower, using all 5"1/4 bays for disks (who needs a CD when you can install your OS on USB?).
Build a software RAID array. Your disk performance will be significantly faster since reads can be parallelized out to multiple disks.
Ok, how many 5.25" drives do you really need in a non CD/DVD replication computer? I have an HP Supermulti-drive (multiple DVD formats, all CD formats) w/Lightrscribe. What other need do I have for a second (third or even fourth) drive? Would you put an external drive out of it's case and put it in your PC? What's the point of buying the external then? I mean seriously.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Warmth and vibration for your Fleshlight.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
For only $600 a month. Barely used, like new!*
Guaranteed bay view.
*Driver not included
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
then start collecting usb thumbdrives and make a RAID array with them.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If I weren't using those drive bays for my radiator, I'd probably use them for hotswap SATA drives. Makes it a bit easier to dual boot and do backups.
You can fit a water-cooling pump and controller system in a 5.25" drive bay.
I recently just dropped one of these in my system the other day. Doing a search for "front panel" on DX can yield quite a number things to fill up those front bay slots with.
I've been through the days where I wanted to do zillions of case mod's to my desktop PC; everything from a 5.25" toggled-switch fan controller bus to microcontroller-controlled lighting system that steals/slaves the 5v power from the PSU (which was pretty bitchin', btw).
All I'm saying is if you're super duper struggling to find a DIY solution to extra 5.25" bays in your PC and went as fas as to ask slashdot'ers what they think, I'd either: 1) just buy a new, slimline case that doesn't have extra bays, 2) take your girlfriend/wife/best friend out to lunch or 3) keep the money in the bank; anything else is just going to be a geek-fad money pit that'll die out sooner than it takes you find another idea to use that empty space for.
Use the space as a shelf and place your external networked backup drive inside. Just because it's logically separate doesn't mean it has to clutter up some corner of the room all by itself. Or your wifi station, though you'll need to let the antenna stick out of course.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
...for those times when you need to clean your keyboard.
A key secured storage space for things like usb thumb drives and my password mini-list. Stuff that's important enough to not leave lying around, but not so important it would really hurt if someone else got it. (like root passwords, full password logbook, credit/debit cards, etc.)
How about a small fridge unit, enough to cool a few cans of beer? I'm sure ThinkGeek could come up with something that'd fit right into two bays, with a separate spring-loaded bay for each can.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
My PC is as far away as possible in the corner under my table. I have a USB DVD player on my desk and a USB connection for all my other things I want to connect to it (Camera, ...)
But if I had to select something, I would go for this: http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/beer_pc.jpg
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
http://goo.gl/BLBo Too bad they don't sell these anymore. Mine works great!
I used to make quite good use of 2 drives when I got my first CD Burner. One drive for reading, one for writing, that way you didn't fill up your tiny 4GB Hard drive with CD images. It was also useful if you wanted background music for games that also required the CD to be present. It worked really well when CD drives used to be just passive audio fed directly into the sound card, because you could have whatever music you wanted playing in your games, without using extra processor cycles.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
An acquaintance of mine converted his extra bays in a full-size tower to a storage space for often-needed electronics. There were drawers for transistors, LEDs, regular diodes, some ICs, and the other little bits he used often in his robot-building hobby. The top bay had a current limiter in it, cleaning and isolating the power supplied to plugs on the front, fed from the PC supply.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I realize not everyone runs RAID 5 on their PC, but I do and for maximum convenience and cooling, convert 2 of those bays into 3-drive hot-swappable goodness.
http://www.istarusa.com/rackmount_chassis/product/BPU-230SATA/2x5.25_inch_to_3x3.5_inch_SATA2.0_Hot-Swap_Backplane_Raid_Cage.aspx
There is a large fan behind the drives which keeps drive temperatures very low (especially since I've only got single-platter 500GB Seagates in there).
This is a MUCH better option than multiple single-slot 5.25" trays with their tiny fans and lousy cooling.
I'm pretty sure this manufacturer does even larger units occupying 3 bays (RAID 10 anyone?)
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Comment removed based on user account deletion
build a monitor in the drivebays http://tweakers.net/ext/f/yH7HML9VL2L3Rk5OK5grdosF/full.jpg full story (dutch) http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/1359397/0//scherm%2Cdrivebay All credit goes to Terw_Dan here, not my mod. Very impressive, and most useful solution of the drivebay space i've seen so far.
- I have a sound card with a front panel bay with RCA inputs, mic/headphone jacks and volume controls as well as some sound preset buttons which takes up one bay.
- Three other bays (my case has 7 total) has a 120mm fan enclosure for air intake (cold air in front of the case means i don't recycle warm air from the back)
- Two bays have a BD-RE/HD-DVD combo drive and a DVD-RW
- The last bay has a fan speed control bay with four nobs to tune fans in my case.
Some other interesting things I've seen are water cooling reservoirs with see-through ports; looks cool if you use fluorescent liquid additives. Also, some HUD-like bays that display system status info; I've even seen some with USB connections to get info from within the OS like HDD/RAM/CPU usage and temperature information.
-SaNo
When I finish a build, I fill a ziplok poly bag full of all the stuff which I got with the parts I used for the box. Then I stuff it in a 5.25" bay which doesn't block ventilation. Sure beats looking though the stack of paper under my desk or in boxes or spare part bins.
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
Or is your life expectancy so short dont you do backup any more?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I have on of those http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=2542 Also, It depends on what you prefer.If you are a "usefull hardware" guy, take a hard drive bay, if you are a system administrator, buy a toaster or a coffe mug holder(unless you use cd-drive tray for that).
Stick a 5.25 inch floppy disk drive in there, just for the pose value.
Nine external 5.25" bays and some fan modules(120mm) that fit in three bays with mounts for three 3.5" drives. at first you might thing it is a waste of space to put one 3.5" drive per 5.25" bay, but the extra space allows for airflow around the drive keeping them nice and cool. Thermaltake M9 and there are a few others with an identical 9-drive configuration.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
EZ Bake oven is the ultimate in easy quick snack goodness!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/ezbake.shtml
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
I much prefer the Cigarette Lighter and Cup Holder Bay Insert, guaranteed to break up fellow geeks, and it holds cups, too!
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
http://yourdaily.blogspot.com/2007/03/pc-beer-dispenser.html
how about a mini aquarium? would look funny...
I have a nice HD bay fan It works out great, because my HD bays are directly in line with my CPU heatsink, I got a couple more MHz out of my overclock upon installing this,
Lots of old drives that are too small to be useful?
Try screwing a drive into every second bay. Make sure you use at least four screws per drive, preferably six...
The extra mass and rigidity of the drives will damp vibrations and make your computer sound *much* quieter. You don't need to actually wire the drives to anything.
You're welcome.
keep the original media and doc ready
One drive for reading, one for writing, that way you didn't fill up your tiny 4GB Hard drive with CD images.
I don't think many of us are using 4GB HDs, and given that HD space is so affordable, I don't see any reason not to store ISO images.
In my case, I got rid of all my CD/DVD drives a long time ago because I consider them mostly useless and a waste of space. I also stopped buying blanks as I've never considered them reliable enough. Installs are the only reason I can see why someone would want a CD/DVD Rom. But those can be done via PXE, a USB stick, or in certain cases, an empty USB-attached HD that will get installed into a new box.
As for the original question as to what to do with empty drive bays, I'd suggest if you have extra space that will never be used, you've bought the wrong case. If it's a server, implementing any kind of RAID (or using ZFS) should fill up the available bays. If it's a desktop, well, lots of alternatives are available. A Mac Mini, for example, would be more appropriate for most end users than a multi-bay tower.
http://www.xpcgear.com/cdhomesblue.html
I use one of these: 4x 2.5 sata.
With 500 gig Scorpio blue drives hitting $55 it's actually price competitive with high quality DVD media, and certainly is space competitive.
(when figuring out price competitive I accounted for the fact that nearly 700 meg of a dvd is often wasted in file backups).
I wrote a perl script that computes and saves to the host and drive a hash table of all files on the archive so I can check for bit-rot.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
What's wrong with duplicate toasts? OMMM NOMMM NOMMM NOMMM!!!!
I want this account deleted.
I have one of these. I charge my celphone with it using my car charger if I forgot the usb cable. However, once I needed to clean a (diferent) pc case and got the bright idea of using one of those 12v mini car vacuum cleaners. It lasted about 1.5 seconds before the PC just up and died. Fortunately no permanent damage was done. There probably was a warning about that somewhere in the discarded small print... I think the cup holder was supposed to be an ashtray actually. I use it to hold extra screws and stuff like that. The actual lighter on mine broke long ago though.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
And you can modify your old inkjet printer to spray butter!
Sure you can put more 3.5" drives in those bays, but you can only attach one side unless you have something put inside the larger bay so you can stabilize both sides of the drive.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I've bought all my systems to date as used systems and I purchased because of price and specs. I'm not really concerned with what to do with them. Even though in introduces a bit more dust, I keep them open so as to allow better airflow.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
...hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping and flashing lights.. blinking and beeping and flashing.. they are flashing and they're beeping..I can't stand it anymore! They're blinking and beeping and flashing.. Why doesn't somebody pull the plug...?!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Fill'em with drives?
Isn't that what they are for?
I find it strange that that thing says it supports OS X when I can't think of a single machine it would even fit in. The towers don't have 5.25" bays like that and the rest of the line doesn't have bays at all.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
It even uses the power.
Indeed. Only a few months ago I was searching long and hard to find a case that had enough 5.25 bays (10+) to build a decent fileserver with, using these. Eventually I managed to find an Antec 1200 at about 50% off list and went with that, but damn it was difficult find _any_ cases with that many bays, that a) weren't rackmount or b) weren't stupidly expensive.
Toss in a 12v LED panel and power it plus fans from the 12v lines. I have a nepenthes growing in the case, now, and the drive bay section holds all the wireless monitoring equipment.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Hey, your PC's generating too much heat anyway, might as well use it?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure you can put more 3.5" drives in those bays, but you can only attach one side unless you have something put inside the larger bay so you can stabilize both sides of the drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811993004&cm_re=5.25_bracket-_-11-993-004-_-Product
For just over a buck, it's not a bad deal. Chances are you can hit a local shop and get them for close to the same price.
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
Only a few months ago I was searching long and hard to find a case that had enough 5.25 bays (10+) to build a decent fileserver with ...
This tower should do the trick. You can fit 12 hot swap drives in a 2U, but if you want something quieter, less expensive, and with space for your 10 drives and have room to expand, a proper 4U chassis is what I'd think you want.
A 4U, incidentally, can be as quiet as comparable desktop. And with a custom cabinet (with or without rails), it will look a helluva lot nicer, not to mention that you'll have none of the cabling mess, etc. typically associated with tower setups.
I thought it might be interesting to get a whole bunch of small ARM boards (eg the sheevaplug motherboard or similar), and mount loads of them inside a single case with a single power supply... I believe they use a 5V power supply, so a standard psu should be able to drive lots of them.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
How about using the power rails inside the case to generate high voltage and light obsolete neon display devices? http://www.illuwatar.se/project_pages/nixieclock2/muxnixie.htm
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
Back in the day we used to mount buttons in extra face plates. We would wire them to the hardware volume control pins on put soundblaters and then wire the others to the parallel port based on a schematic we found that would let us use the buttons to control WinAmp, launch applications etc... I know your question was perhaps more focused on the bay space ielf but don't forget Fun With Faceplates!
I did this over a decade ago. I put a DPDT toggle switch in the drive bay cover and wired it to the DRIVE 1 and DRIVE 2 jumpers on a pair of MFM hard drives. With the flip of a switch I could boot into DOS or AIX. Back in the day, it required a pair of identical drives. But today the BIOS will auto-detect at boot so you could do it with the MASTER and SLAVE jumpers on IDE drives or get real creative and tap into the CSEL lines on the ribbon connector. Heck, I might try hot-wiring a rotary switch to the multiplier jumpers on a MOBO just so I can turn the processor speed up to 11.
I've been using one of these for over a year. Handy for having your OS on a 4x SSD RAID. Uses only one 5.25" bay:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816710003
Be sure to get the beefier model (with the fans) if you want to use 4x VRaptors.
Allyn Malventano
Storage Editor, PC Perspective
this sig was brought to you by the letter
That doesn't sound very typical.
You've never seen a PC case with bays for CD/DVD-ROM drives on the front? That doesn't sound typical.
Awesome (:
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
After many years of just this sort of question [*] I though 'bugger it' and started buying Macs. iMacs, MacBooks, MBPs, and since Saturday I now have a Mac mini. No drive bays: I can just get on with writing code without worrying and wasting time and money on such things.
The same likely applies to people who buy only laptops these days.
[*] to which the answer is nearly always: more hard disks. Which just makes the problems worse when you reach 12 3.5" disks in an ATX case.
I have two of those 5-in-3 SATA enclosures in my desktop. It's a Lian-Li tower, about $200. Newegg doesn't stock it anymore else I'd link you, but those combined with the case's internal storage gave me 22 3.5" slots, which is enough for me. Not sure if $200 is what you consider "stupidly expensive," but if you look around, Lian-Li still makes some.
Also, I think the Coolermaster Stacker cases come with up to 9 5.25 bays, so that could work too.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Unless you have an OEM PC that already has this, thats a good use. Its about a 19 dollar dohickey that fits right in that hole there and had usb audio and firewire.
For just over a buck, it's not a bad deal.
Since it's actually $8 when you include shipping, it's not so good a deal after all. Even buying 10 only lowers the per-unit total cost to $3.
Chances are you can hit a local shop and get them for close to the same price.
I've looked, and they are about $5 in local stores. I purchased a case of 24 from Best Buy for Business for less than $30 including shipping, but that was about 3 years ago.
I use this case for my smaller servers, which allows me to have 6 hard drives by using three of the 5-1/4" bays with adapters. With this motherboard, you can put an awful lot of computing power into a small space, and it's much quieter than rack mount solutions.
I will tell you what I did with all MY extra bays:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998031
Love it! Combine Linux with AHCI with these racks and have kewlness! Throw in any number of regular, cheap SATA 3.5" drives. Hotswap. Activity light. Create a software RAID (that is what I did, and it really works). Use it for removable backup that stores more than a USB drive and is much faster. Play around with different boot options.
I put in four of those suckers. The 5th bay is my DVD drive. Oh- and the floppy bay? Do this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998038
And now I have dual hotswap 2.5 inch drives in the mix too!!
Snakes on a backplane???
(sorry, somebody had to say it!)
They've had the adapters for years now. I always had a few laying around, in case I wanted to add yet another drive to a PC that didn't have any more 3.25" bays. Most of mine, I salvaged out of machines being thrown away. Folks seem to think I'm the person to give their junk PC's to, so I take the parts I want and trash the rest.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
My apologies if this was already posted.
I suggest creating a self destruct button... Something along the lines of: http://hackaday.com/2008/09/16/how-to-thermite-based-hard-drive-anti-forensic-destruction/
Scott Swezey
I'm sure they have, just never seen them sold. I figured they were all/mostly in local brick and mortar stores or homebrew.
If I remove my internal zip drive (click-of-death affected) and internal floppy drive (which doesn't even work, I think) I'll have 4 3.5" bays (same amount as my 5.25" bays, oddly enough). Even odder? I don't have enough IDE channels for 7 HDDs and 1 DVD multidrive (HP dvd1040i) so I don't see the point unless I upgrade the motherboard (which means upgrading, at this point, everything else except the year old PSU).
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Oh wait, nevermind - got one already.
I have four of those 5" bays, and one 3" bay (screw the decimals:-p ). I have one DVD-drive, but the rest are not used for anything at all but air. Why then? The Antec P182 is one of the best for passive cooling, featuring lots of sound damping and, yes, open space for hot air to go and dissipate in. I'm running a 3GHz dual-core CPU with a passive cooler (and it's doing just fine).
"Good news, everyone!"
It's a very interesting solution, and good to know that its price and space competitive -- but what about noise? Yes, I realise that you may just not care, and that's fine, but I do, and that's why I'm asking. Don't four drives make an awful racket, what with both spindle noise and their cross harmonics? Are they suspended/dampened/cooled in a sensible way?
"Good news, everyone!"
Around 15 years ago I had a 7-band digital car equalizer/booster in my overclocked full-tower 486 (AMD 5x86 @160Mhz, 4*40, very nice CPU)
It was *almost* a perfect fit, only had to dremel the case and the amp a little. It was powered from a MOLEX connector (using an homemade choke to filter out unwanted spikes and whine) then hooked up to the sound card and a set of 4 4ohm loudspeakers (no surround, just stereo though). At 120W RMS it kinda killed the original power supply while playing an intense mission in Tie Fighter :(
(It was a half-din Radio-Crap digital EQ/amp, I think I might still have it somewhere in my locker)
My modified 11W CB could probably be fitted in a 5.25 bay too, I just wouldn't know where to put my 102" whip antenna, I could ask my landlord If I could put it on the roof with a ground plate :p
But, it might be a fun project for the week-end, I have an old InWin Q500 full-tower lying here doing nothing, and I'm pretty sure I still have my old Blaupunkt head-unit too (tape, Montreal model IIRC)
Besides, I'm always looking for new excuses to use my Dremel :p
Tape deck, EQ, and CB would take 3 bays, CD/DVD-ROM would take another, and I still would have one to spare (card reader or drive caddy)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
As the other poster said, airflow. It's really your friend if you want to keep your system's noise level down. And if you're particular about your components (or software), a Mac Mini (or similarly-sized case) is probably not the best bet.
"Good news, everyone!"
That's pretty much my setup (aside from proc speed, which is a measly 2.4GHz PIV (yes, it is ancient)). 1 DVD drive, two actual 3" hdd's, and nothing else except open space and two fans (not including PSU fans and CPU fan).
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I only ever use the 5.25" bays, and find the 3.5" ones useless.
For example:
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/harddrivesolutions/smartdrive-neo
takes a conventional 3.5" disk, and both cools and quietens it.
The effect is quite dramatic: I cannot hear my PC at all.
(I already put a silent CPU heatsink in, and a very-quiet PSU).
Perhaps not the most creative use, but it seems every single item I connect to my PC needs a different cable - mostly USB, but there are so many versions to choose from these days. Plus other stuff like headphones, a portable hard disc, spare batteries for cordless mouse etc. Generally I'd got a pile of bits and pieces centred around a desktop with 7 empty 5.25" bays.
I've got a few of these: http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/caseaccessories/kama-cabinet-abk - they're just little storage drawers, but they're helpful for organising all the bits that go with the PC.
Even odder? I don't have enough IDE channels for 7 HDDs and 1 DVD multidrive
You do know you can get controllers for pretty much every type of drive interface you could want on a PCI or PCIe card right?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Back in the mid 90's I made a controller than ran a couple of 12" subs off the computer's sound card. On the front I had a couple of volume controls and rows of LEDs to show the output visually.
I've also got something a little special in the next series of funnyhacks which starts in September.
Funnyhacks - Wierd, unusual, and fun hacks
I do agree that most of the manufacturers do go overboard with the drive bays. I built a new machine around Christmas time for myself. It's in the cheapest case they had, with a power supply that would handle my motherboard. It also has a clear sid, so I can look straight in. :) It has 4 5.25" bays and 6 3.5" bays. While it's overkill, I do appreciate having the extra space. It makes for a larger air mass, so the machine doesn't try to overheat as much. The ambient temp in the house is 82F right now. The motherboard temp is 99F, and the CPU is at 113F. That is with a 90CFM exhaust fan (added on), and the smaller (probably 20-30CFM) intake fan.
But, for utilization of all the bays, you do not have to depend on just the onboard ports. I built a backup server a few years ago. I just grabbed some old parts that were laying around, including 8 120GB IDE drives. Two drives were set up as RAID1 for the OS. The other 6 were RAID5 for backup storage. it's an intermediary step between the servers and the tapes. I can't say that I've seen too many machines with 6 IDE ports onboard. I picked up 3 Promise IDE controllers.
The first two drives went on as PRI and SEC master. The CD went on as PRI slave. The remaining 6 drives were all configured master, and put on their own channel (one PRI master and one SEC master per card).
In theory with this configuration, I could have put in 16 drives.
I'm selling a bunch of 4 port Adaptec SATA RAID controllers on eBay right now. You could fill your case with SATA drives and hook them all up with just one card, assuming you have 4 ports already. The hard part is cabling it, and ensuring your power supply is strong enough to handle all those drives, and keeping it cool. I have 13 still listed. I'm keeping two for myself, in case I want to use them sometime. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I do, but again, it's a matter of upgrading the board (which has certain flakey components (such as the PS/2 ports and soon to be the builtin USB ports).
One for 5-port USB card, one for NIC, one for sound, AGP for video (video needs to be replaced btw) leaves me with two unused slots (one of which may not work).
Just saying. My board is toast.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
broke at the moment, but thanks for the info.
My PSU is 650W, should handle a bunch more than what I have easily.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
This reminds me of years ago when I had this system where I had like four big huge hard drives connected to my computer, that were too big to fit inside, so I left the cover off. A system only a geek could love. Well, there was this huge three foot iguana I had inherited that I made a roost for it by the computer. That was a mistake! It was calm much of the time but would suddenly and without any apparent reason would dart off like a rabbit to hide inside what qualified as the nearest hole which much to my chagrin ended up being the empty drive bays. So suddenly there's this huge monster frantically ripping a hole through the back of the computer ripping wires and chips like some crazed reverse alien being trying to get in instead of out! So I guess this might qualify as the most unique but impractical use of empty hard drive bays.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
Isn't that a fire hazard when PC is on?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The holes are placed not just to allow a certain amount of air but to also direct its flow. You've screwed up your case's airflow by leaving the bays open like that.
Or if you have 3 spare 5.25" bays you could use something like this http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=CFP52B&area=usa
Can't tell with how cool everything is in there.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
External as in external access. That is to distinguish them from the ancient 5.25 bays without external access used for really old hard-drives. Just as There are internal 3.5 bays, which are normally used for hard-drives, and also the external ones that 3.5 inch floppy drives used.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
I wanted a simple way to connect an original Xbox controller to my rig to play emulated games, and I knew that the Xbox game port is electrically and logically a USB port. So, I pulled one of the two port harnesses out of a dead Xbox, wired the ports to pin header connectors, and plugged them into the USB headers on my motherboard. The system recognized the controllers I plugged in as USB gamepads, with the help of the Xbox drivers for OS X and Windows (Linux has native support).
I found that the width of the gameport harness was a perfect fit for one of my two 3.5" bays, so I used a couple of self tapping screws to bolt them in place. Now, to use a gamepad I just open the drive door and plug it in. The most fun part for me was learning (via the OS X gamepad control panel) that the ABXY buttons can be switched to analog pressure control, just like the shoulder buttons. (Don't laugh, I'm not a regular Xbox player so I wasn't previously aware of this feature.)
Lexan fish tank mounted to the case with bettas or other fish that don't want a huge space.
That's pretty sweet. (:
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I used to use it as a cooler. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/comp1.jpg
External as in external access.
So, if "external access" was meant, then why was that not said? "External" means that it is outside of the case.
... and then they built the supercollider.
A few years back, I noticed my DSL modem, router, network hub, etc. were around 5-6 inches wide. I figured if I could take the guts out and put the boards in custom enclosures, I could convert an old PC case to a mini rack mount, with a lot of the cables contained inside. Never came up with an enclosure solution I liked, though. Most of these devices are powered by wall warts that feed DC current, the challenge is picking devices that take 5 or 12V (there's a lot of stuff out there that wants 7 or 9V, although that can be done if you want to get creative).
...since this IS Ask Slashdot ;)
Should fit, right?
Their they're doing there hair.
Drive Bay UPS's aren't hard to come by. They only last for a few minutes normally but if it's something useful, practical and worthwhile.
Is that really worth $100?
Redundant Array of Independent Tapes?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
cooled, yes.
not much else, but since they are only in when making a backup, it's not so bad.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Without built-in inverter and an external battery pack an UPS could last for longer; this could fit between the power rails of the PSU.
3 bays could fit a 12V battery without any problems; only safety might be an issue when overloading the UPS.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I've got a PC with 9 bays, all filled with fufme's and cameras attached to "participate deep within social networking" ... ... Gives me an orgy of information!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Two of these drawers can hold some extra dvd's, flash drives, and whatnot. They are also rather stealthy.
Clickety Click
I thought it would be nice to have a dock for my Android phone and for other portable devices. I started a project to empty the guts out of a 5.25 tray and make a slot formp3 players / Nexus One (or any Mini usb mobile or other device).
Like most projects I started the list of possible features grew somewhat...
Additional front USB ports (always useful)
IEEE 1394
eSATA port(s)
Hot swappable SSD bay
3.25" HDD sata dock
Addtional ethernet - possible rip apart a multi-port hub and integrate it
Various DC (5,12 and maybe 6 & 9v etc) adapters with a retractable cord.
Molex connectors
Fan headers
DC->DC power supply for hobbies
Single can peltier based beer cooler
Also like many project I start, I collected a few parts then got distracted by something else geeky.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I'm still waiting for ThinkGeek (or a similar outfit) to start selling an electric pencil sharpener that fits in a standard drive slot of my PC and is powered from the PSU of the PC. Keeping the wood and graphite particles away from the innards of the computer may pose a problem.
You do know you can get controllers for pretty much every type of drive interface you could want on a PCI or PCIe card right?
Finally, I can get some use out of those old full-height Disk ][ drives on a modern machine! 140 KB floppies again! Some RWTS source code and a 6502 coprocessor board and I'll have my classic T-800 running and hunting down the Connor family in no time!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I use ST-506 drives, you insensitive clod!
the task of cleaning out the closet where I've been dumping my old computers and parts came to the top of the infamous honey-do list. I found 8 40gig drives a couple of 30gig drives and a 20gig drive. After testing I had 6 working 30gig drives. I tore down the others just for grins and giggles and to pass around in some of my classes. Not to mention the magnets in the head positioning system are fun to play with.
I also found an old mother board, 3 or 4 CDROM drives, RAM, a couple of power supplies and a very very old PC case. So, I built a PC. We call it Frankenputer. I got a working Athlon 1.5Ghz processor from the computer goodwill store and I lucked out and found some PCI IDE interface cards at the same place. (I had to update all the ROMs in the whole system to get it to work. Finding the BIOSes for a bunch of discontinued cards made by out of business companies was not as hard it sounds.) I had one set of rails for installing a 3.5 inch hard drive in a 5.25 bay. I found several more at computer Goodwill Computer store! I picked up a 30 dollar case at Fry's.
Thanks to google, Goodwill, and freedos I got it all working. I used FreeDos and GParted to get all the disks configured and tested as a raid. Then, I installed Ubuntu using the "alternative" installation disk.
Even though the drives were all "40GB" drives each manufacturers drives were of a different size. So, I created a partition the size of the smallest drive on each drive. Then in the extra space I created a partition of the size of the empty space on the next largest drive. The odd bits of space left at the end of two drives I just partitioned as their actual size. I used the 6 large partitions as a RAID 0, the second set became another RAID 0. The rest of the partitions just became normal drives.
I stuck an old NVidia video card and a old but good network card in there and the thing actually works. It is an absurdly fast disk server.
Every 3.5 inch bay has a drive in it. Every 5.25 inch drive bay has a drive in it.
All the rest of the stuff in the closet went to Goodwill or the dump. Recently a new item went on my list... Move Frankenputer out of the living room. Oh well. And it looks so good on the book shelf :-) For some reason she wants me to move the table saw out of the living room too. Can't imagine why? Can you?
Stonewolf