RackChoice Internal Hard Drive Enclosure 5x2.5”/3.5” SATA/SAS Hard Drive Backplane 6 Gbps HDD hotswap in 3xExternal 5.25" Bay Compatible with All Rack Types

Good price, has a fan, supports SAS, internal or portable/external. Not top quality in terms of materials as there is a substantial amount of plastic, but overall, good. It's tool-less; swapping drives is faster than any other hotswap enclosure I've used. Drives slide in and engage easily. Because it's really an internal design, it does not have a built-in power supply. It uses a typical molex 4-pin, 5v/12v input. Therefore, if used externally, you will have to source your own power supply(s). My understanding is that SAS/SATA use 5v on the circuit, and 12v on the spindle. Problem: there are no 5v/12v power supplies with sufficient amperage to power up the drives; I tried with a 3 amp, and it didn't work. Therefore, you will have to use two separate power supplies, ideally: Y-power cord -> two power supplies, 5v/12v -> molex 4-pin (custom spliced). According to Seagate specs (3.5 drives), for startup: peak 0.876 amps on the 5V rail, 2.126 on the 12v rail. Five drives total: 4.38 amps/5V, 10.63 amps/12V. With staggered/delayed spinup on lsi controllers: storcli /c0 set spinup delay / spinupdrivecount you might be able to get by with 5 amps on the 12v rail. I have two 8 amp power supplies on order and we'll see how it goes. Currently I'm using the 4-pin connector off the power supply. Will update the review later after I get the power supplies setup.Update 12/12/24: see picture of my custom power supply. Also, the fan is slow spinning and therefore quiet, but temps are higher than I'd prefer, average: 49C 52C 51C 45C. Up to 8C difference between the coolest and hottest drive. For better air distribution with four drives, narrowing the gap to 4/5C difference, it's best to use the top four and tape off the last tray.Update 2: 12/12/24: As I was rearranging my drives I ended up with slot #1 not working, but the other slots seemed to work, albeit with a tight fit. It turned out I did not properly place the drive in the tray, which caused the ends to protrude. Make sure you align the drive screw holes perfectly with the two nibs and it will work as expected.Update 3: 12/23/24: Note: the drive temps I stated were with a high ambient temp of around 83-85 F.

I bought this to replace an Icy Dock originally in my Unraid home server. At the time I chose the Icy Dock I opted not to spend the extra money for a "tool-less" design, but have since regretted that choice every time I needed to swap out hard drives, and had to mess with four tiny screws to mount each drive in it's sled. So I decided to switch.The Rack Choice is considerably less expensive than the Icy Dock. Apparently it was deliberate on the part of Rack Choice to opt for lower cost using lighter gauge metal and more plastic. While the Icy Dock has a very solid and precise mechanical construction with a high-end feel, I think the choices made by Rack Choice make sense from a value proposition. The design and materials actually function better than I expected. (The unanswered question is whether it will be reliable long term.)As noted in other reviews, for some reason the spacing between the drive sleds is slightly inconsistent, so the design appears to lack some precision. But that's merely an aesthetic flaw. From a functional aspect it works fine. All four 3.5" HDDs (installed tool-less-ly) and an SSD (installed in the sled with supplied screws) mated seamlessly with the connectors. The insertion and removal is smooth and precise, although not with the extremely solid "feel" of the Icy Dock.I did run into one problem using the tool-less thumbscrews supplied with my case to mount the Rack Choice in the case's drive bay. Those screws proved to be a bit too long and impeded the right-most ("HDD5") sled, so I had to use the shorter Philips head screws supplied by Rack Choice.The performance of the Rack Choice 80mm cooling fan actually surpasses the more expensive Icy Dock's two-speed 80mm fan. The Icy Dock's low speed provided less airflow than I found necessary, while the high speed was far too noisy. The Rack Choice fan provides better overall cooling without excessive noise. It's likely aided by the less restrictive airflow design of it's drive sleds relative to the Icy Dock's.Since Icy Dock has been using SATA power connectors for some time, I thought the use of the Molex power connectors by Rack Choice to be a bit surprising. However Rack Choice uses two of the Molex, simplifying their design compared to the Icy Dock's with three SATA power connectors. I'm guessing that the Molex connectors are rated to handle higher amperage. Icy Dock's three SATA power connectors result in a messier rear panel with power and data connectors scattered all over in various orientations, whereas the Rack Choice connectors are laid out adjacently resulting in a cleaner design with connectors easier to access from inside the server case. On the other hand, the two Molex sockets are tightly adjacent leaving no room for "squeeze-to-release" Molex connectors, so I had to bend the "squeezers" out of the way for my Molex plugs to insert.Overall, while there are various tradeoffs, I am very pleased with the Rack Choice product. I think thoughtful choices where made to achieve a good value / performance ratio.