Icybox IB-158SK-B Trayless Mobile Rack for 3.5 inch SATA HDD

This has worked well for two years, but a few days ago the door lock opener hinge snapped, The lock hinge is a metal pin housed in a top and bottom plastic socket which is about 1mm dia. I guess it was always the weakest link and set to fail sooner rather than later.Plastic and metal - not always a good mix when it's a bearing component.

I bought two of these and, after installing and some basic testing, I'm happy and likely to buy one or two more.The one minor issue I have is that most hard drives seem very tight when you're trying to slot them in/out, and it can take a slightly worrying amount of force to get the drive into place and the door to click shut - not a huge amount of force, but still more than I expected and enough to cause some am-I-going-to-break-things anxiety the first few times.One thing that was neither good nor bad in particular, but a surprise based on past racks (with trays) that I've used, is that when hot-swapping the drive powers up as soon as it's slotted into place, even before the door clicks shut. The lock is exactly that, to lock the door closed (preventing accidental removal) and doesn't power the drive up/down. As usual, make sure the BIOS SATA settings are correct to support hot-swapping for each relevant SATA port before inserting/removing drives while the PC is powered up.

With the cases that have easy install drive systems the hdd rack I bought before didn't fit the P180 as it has sound absorbing washers etc which means the frame isn't rigid so when I try to pull the drive out the rack comes out... So this one is the answer. Rigid frame that stays in place with the easy install rails and it locks in so I can pull the drive out and leave the rack in the case... Excellent build quality as expected from icybox. Works a treat...

The aluminum case feels quite sturdy, the quality overall is very nice and the rack fits perfectly into a 5.25 bay. There's a place to fit 40x40 fan (not included) inside the rack, the HDD sits snugly when the door is clicked shut and you can even lock the door (2 keys included). Overall I'm very pleased with the product.If there's one thing that could use improvement that would be FAQ on manufacturer's site explaining exact steps necessary to make hot swap work as intended. I had to Google most of it myself - a) make sure that AHCI is enabled in your MB BIOS and hot swap is enabled for the SATA port you use to connect the mobile rack; b) if you (like me) have installed your current version of Win10 while Native IDE mode was enabled you need to Google this "Switch Windows 10 from RAID/IDE to AHCI operation"; c) disable write caching for the drives you put into the rack ("Properties" -> "Hardware" -> "Properties" -> "General" -> "Change settings" -> "Policies").

Many of the cheaper units are quite flimsy. The fact that his sold sides gives this unit a much greater resilience. Units fits easily into the PC. The pc into which this is installed is a tower unit. The 3.5 inch hard drive just slots in without any issues, so the alignment seems to perfect.Be aware that these are only hot swap if your OS supports this. Otherwise, they are great for taking drives in and out without having to dismantle the PC