StarTech.comHot Swap Hard Drive Bay for 2.5" SATA SSD / HDD - Portable - USB 3.1 (10Gbps) Removable Hard Drive Enclosure (S251BU31REM),Black

First, this review is for the S251BU31REM hot swap bay. The rest of the reviews here are for one or more completely different products. Amazon really needs to discontinue their despicable practice of combining reviews for what they consider to be "similar" products.I bought this (and a few additional enclosures) to use for backing up my laptop and syncing them with a desktop computer. I can connect the drives in the enclosures to the laptop for updating by using short USB cables (more on that in a moment). Also, by inserting them one at a time into the hot swap bay installed in the computer, I can sync data between the laptop and the desktop (aka sneakernet). Four of these enclosures (I have four drives in my laptop so I need four backup drives) will easily fit into my laptop case.The enclosures are fairly rugged (I would have preferred to have seen aluminum on the front and rear instead of plastic) and should do a good job of protecting the drive inside if the enclosure is dropped, even if the plastic ends break. The body is sturdy extruded aluminumI had several of an earlier version of this hot swap bay and enclosure but I replaced them with this newer version because the earlier version of the enclosure was not TRIM compatible when using SSDs and connecting via USB. The older version of the enclosure required that a SATA to USB adapter be removed from the enclosure before inserting it into the enclosure, something that is not needed on this one (one less thing to lose, break, or wear out).I was a bit concerned when I ordered these because all the pictures I could find of it, including on Amazon and at Startech's website, showed the hot swap bay sticking out significantly from the front of the 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter, which would look junky. Actually, it does not stick out; it's nearly flush with the adapter. Also, I wasn't able to find any pictures showing how far the enclosure protruded from the bay. Fortunately, it protrudes only far enough to easily see the power/activity LED and, when the ejector button has been pressed, it will move out even more to make grasping it for removal easy. I included a couple of photos showing the bay with the bay installed in the bay adapter and the enclosure inserted in the bay.Although there is nothing really wrong with the included plastic bay adapter, I prefer metal over plastic and plan on not using the included bay adapter. I already knew this when I placed the order; I have brushed aluminum finished aluminum adapters (discontinued Lian Li) I can use that will match the other bays and bay covers I have in use already.Installing drives into the enclosures is far easier than it was in the older version I had. In the older enclosures, the two tiny screws in the back were a bear to remove and replace without stripping the screw heads. The screws in the end of the new enclosures are much, much easier to remove and replace. A PH00 (aka #00 Phillips head) screwdriver works best for removing and replacing those screws. A #1 Phillips head screwdriver is best for installing the screws that hold the drive to the PCB inside the enclosure.The enclosures fit smoothly and easily into the hot swap bays but the fit is close enough, you can't put any decals or label tape on top of the enclosures without them hanging up when removing the enclosures from the bay. I also tried putting electrical tape on the bottom of an enclosure so scooting it around on a desk top wouldn't scratch up the paint on the bottom over time. That also caused the enclosure to hang up when being removed from the bay. I put my label tape on the front of the enclosures. You can also put 1/4" flat label tape (such as used by Brother label makers) on the sides but it's a close fit.Edit: What made me drop the rating from five stars down to one is the two tiny black screws that hold the back of the enclosure onto the enclosure are an oddball or proprietary size that I can't find anywhere. The thread is 4-48 and the length is 5/16". The only 4-48 screw lengths I could find that came close were 1/4" (too short) or 3/8" (too long). I could have cut 3/8" screws down but the other problem is the heads on the Startech screws are much smaller than any other screws I could find and would keep the enclosure from being inserted into the hotswap bay.I attempted to get some spare screws from Startech since, if I were to lose one (very easy to do), the enclosure would be useless. Startech's response was, since it wasn't a warranty issue, they couldn't provide any screws. When I responded, asking if they could tell me where I could buy them (after all, they have to get theirs from somewhere), they ignored me. My advice? Unless you absolutely need something like this, stay away from this due to Startech's unacceptably poor customer service. If you do get this, do NOT lose those screws!Edit 2: I finally was able to get Startech to tell me the screws were actually 2.6mm instead of 4-48 (It's curious that screws fit my 4-48 thread gauge). With that information I was able to find a company ( nbk1560 dot com/en-US/products/#all ) that carried the screws under part number SNZF-M2.6-8-TBZ. I had to buy a pack of 50 screws but, even with shipping, is far less expensive than having to replace an entire enclosure if I ever lost a screw.Something else I like about the enclosures is the LEDs aren't a piercingly bright blue. They put out a pleasantly soft, green light.Although I rated this at five stars, I do have some serious complaints. First is the use of a USB 3.0 type micro B connector on the back of the enclosure. Why? USB C has been around almost as long as these enclosures, if not longer, and it's far easier to find USB C cables nowadays. Startech did include a USB C to USB 3.0 micro B cable and a USB 3.0 type A to USB 3.9 micro B cable but they are way too long for my needs (others may find them too short). I had one heck of a time finding shorter ones of each more suitable for my use.Also, what is Startech's obsession with using floppy drive power connectors (this isn't the first Startech product I've seen and used that had them)? Those were on the way out before the end of the last century! SATA power connectors have been the standard for years. Startech did include a four pin floppy power connector to SATA power adapter cable and a floppy four pin power connector to Molex four pin power connector (another outmoded connector) adapter cable. Fortunately, the cable with the SATA power connector was exactly the right length for my use and only need some sleeving added to dress up the ugly bare wires.Another improvement over the previous model I had was the SATA data connector. This one is latchable. The previous one wouldn't latch and I had to shim the connector with tape to get it to stay in. Ironically, the SATA data cable included with the hot swap bay is not the latchable type. Way to go, Startech!Between the USB and power cables and a SATA data cable, that's five cables, of which only two will get used at most (if at all), and they may or may not be the correct length. That's an added cost that consumers do not need. If Startech had just used more current connectors, then a consumer could easily just get the correct cables they need themselves. I have a huge number of cables that were included with various devices that were the wrong length, etc. that I'll probably never use.The enclosures and bay will work with Linux out of the box. TRIM for SSDs will work when the enclosure is inserted in the bay, but, when using a USB cable, TRIM will not work out of the box. It's necessary to first create a udev rule in the computer. I had a hard time finding out how to do this with another brand of enclosure (all the directions I found were incomplete) so here are directions on how to do it.1. Identify the Vendor ID and Product IDRun lsusb in the terminal with the device plugged in. If you aren't sure which device in the list is your SSD, unplug it and run lsusb again and see which device disappeared. (Don't forget to unmount the filesystem before you unplug the device.)Every device has an ID value in the list. For example, mine is “174c:1351” (the ID for the Startech enclosure). The Vendor ID is the first part and the Product ID is the second part.2. Create a udev rule. In the terminal, copy and paste this line and hit Enter.sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/50-usb-ssd-trim.rulesType in your password, then hit Enter again.Copy and paste this rule into the text editor (all one line; the correct IDs for these enclosures have already been added):ACTION=="add|change", ATTRS{idVendor}=="174c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1351", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_disk", ATTR{provisioning_mode}="unmap"Pressing CTRL+O, ENTER, and CTRL+X will save and close the file in Nano.Now, the next time you plug in your device via USB, TRIM should work.

Great for adding expansion when you're out of places to hide a drive but buyer beware the enclosure is an oven when using drives at full transfer rates. Drive in use is a Samsung 1TB SSD that previously had no thermal throttling

I actually like this product, but it does have a few flaws. I think if the manufacturer can fix these flaws, it would be an awesome product. That said, I'm not one to shy away from doing a little "customization" with my dremel tool. Here are some details about the flaws:1. the PCI bracket that fits in the opening at the rear of your PC case is a little too wide on the "short" end of the "L" bracket. Specifically, about 1mm too wide on the side opposite the notch for the hold down screw. some cases expect the bracket to meet standards and have an upright tab that is meant to hold the "short" end of the "L" bracket in place. if your case has this, this product's PCI L-bracket will not fit or you have to cut off 1mm. I used a rotary tool with a cut-off wheel to do this.2. the side of this product that is meant to sit on top of the electrical PCI-E slot has brackets to assist in holding it in place, specifically there's a rear bracket and a forward bracket (closer to the L-bracket). these are actually good ideas as it does stabilize the installation, however the forward bracket on one side extends "beyond" the electrical PCI-E slot and this is where the problem lies. Some motherboards may have large electrical components like capacitors near the end of the electrical PCI-E slot, or in some case there may be a protective covering that protects such electrical components; any of these things will obstruct the metal bracket and not allow you to seat the product all the way down. The fix is simple, you simply have to cut about 1cm of one side of the forward bracket. Again, I did this with a rotary tool and cut-off wheel.3. this product allows thicker 2.5" HDD to be installed, of course this also allows anything thinner to also be installed like SSDs. however, alignment of the SSD SATA connector may require carefully holding the SSD to one side as you push it in. it's possible to even completely misalign the SSD and insert it all the way; which happened once and almost made me suspect of SSD or this product was defective; which it was not. one thing that is nice about this product is that once a drive is properly inserted and there is power applied, a blue LED will light up. If you insert a drive and the power is on but you don't see a blue LED, you might want to remove and try re-inserting the drive again. a more permanent fix to this problem might be to have a tension spring inside that would push thinner drives against one side of the drive slot.#1 and #2 above can be a show stopper if you're not willing to "fix" the product yourself. #3 is an inconvenience, but in reality you probably won't be inserting/removing drives all that frequently so it's a minor inconvenience. I made the necessary fixes for #1+#2 and currently using this product in a Dell PowerEdge server to hold two SSDs that are used as the OS drive and ZFS cache drives for the larger disk pool in the system.

Have a couple of old 3U servers that have 3.5" floppy drive bays (did I mention they were old) on the front of the case that were just sitting empty since I didn't have any floppy drives to put in them. The servers are e-waste rescues that I use for home labs use. I use this to hold the boot SSD and can easily swap between machines on swap SSDs to change the OS without having to pull the server out of the rack and disassembling it. The entire hot swap cage is metal. This makes much more sturdy for changing out the drives unlike other 2.5" trays where the sleds are metal, but the locking mechanism is cheap plastic. You can also pick up the sleds separately so you can have spares or other drives ready for swap.

こういうストレージを楽に交換できるパーツが欲しかったので助かりました。コネクタ周りに問題があるとのレビューがありますが、個体差なのか改善されたのかは不明ですが私のは問題なかったです。残念というか注意が必要な部分として、PCIスロットが逆向きのPCケースは注意が必要です。逆向きというのはグラボを装着した際にファンがケースの上向きになるようなケースです(普通は下)例えば、silverstone SST-SG16B みたいなケースです。このパーツ内には微妙な空洞があります。逆向きの場合、その空洞にストレージが入り込みます。結果、蓋は完全に閉まっているにもかかわらず認識されない状態になります(SATA端子に刺さってない)※逆向きでなければ正常な位置にスムーズに入ります写真に挙げている私のケースも逆さタイプなのですが、逆さ状態ではどうしてもうまくストレージを装着することができず、ストレージの交換はPCケース自体を逆さにして行っています。PCIスロットの向きにはご注意ください。

商品は、金属製で冷却性も良く、2.5インチ収納トレイの出し入れもスムーズで取付も問題なく、良い商品だと思います。

この手の商品は、プラスチックの安っぽい作りが大半ですが、この商品はフルメタル外装でずっしり重く、かなりの高級感があります。引き出しもワンタッチで、電源スイッチもLEDが搭載されていて、見た目は非常に満足です。SSDをトレーに取り付けするのが小さいネジ止めなので、頻繁にSSDを交換するのはかなり手間です。4つトレーがある5インチベイのものと同時使用で、トレーごと保管が良い使い方だと思います。

作りはしっかりしています。しかし、後面のファンが2基もあるので音が気になるかな。静かな環境には向かないかもしれません。気になったのでファンを外したところ、エラー検出に引っ掛かり、青と赤のランプが交互に光るようになってしまいました･･･。

2種類のOSを切り替えて使用する為に購入しましたが失敗しましたSATAコネクタと電源コネクタの接触が悪くて差し替える度に認識したりしなかったりを繰り返す為使い物になりませんでしたコネクタの接触不良は最悪の場合ストレージの破損にも繋がるので非常に危険です