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

I bought two of the RackChoice Internal Hard Drive Enclosures on sale for use in a CoolerMaster tower with 6 exposed 5.25 bays. I run an UnRaid server with 10 HDD/SSDs and this is a perfect solution. As other reviewers have noted I had to make minor modifications to the internal bays of the CoolerMaster tower, bending some tabs out of the way to fit the 5-in-3 enclosures but otherwise it was a simple plug-and-play. No instructions needed. The enclosures have 2 Molex power connectors for redundancy, assuming you have two separate independent power rails and you choose to use them in a redundant fashion. Otherwise a single power connection from the PSU to the enclosure works fine. I am powering 5 HDD on a single power rail without issue using a 750W PSU.The HDD sleds require no screws to mount a 3.5 HDD, they just snap-in-place. For 2.5 SSDs screws are required and supplied with enclosure along with 5 SATA cables, but I chose to use my own cables. The sleds latch into place with minimal effort and hold the drives securely in the enclosure. The power and activity lights on each sled work as expected, so you can see at glance what bays have drives installed and when they are active.I did replace the fans in the enclosures with Noctua NF-A8 FLX 80mm fans as mentioned in another review. I have used Noctua fans in other builds and they are excellent and silent fans. It’s not that the stock fans are bad or excessively loud, but for my application and server location I wanted something a bit quieter and lower pitched. I think a lot may depend on your case size/design and the other fans installed in the case as to whether noise is an issue for you. The stock fans run at 2500rpm and in their favor they do keep the 5-in-3 enclosures a few degrees cooler then the Noctua NF-A8 that have set to run 1650rpm which is the middle speed. Even so my drive temperatures range from 29C to 34C under normal use after replacing the stock fans vs. 27C to 33C with the stock fans.Bottomline is that RackChoice Internal Hard Drive Enclosures are a good value and work well if you are looking to clean up you case and have easy access to your drives for replacement. Just to put a final point this: These enclosures are for internal use only. They have no internal controllers and are not a standalone NAS. Read the description carefully before purchasing.

I did need to modify the case to accommodate this enclosure. Everything seems to work well enoughI will say the drive carriages don't always smoothly insert or eject. You need to push on the frame to get it to fully seat, the levers don't send it home and the plastic slides aren't great as far as tolerance goes.The fan is noticeable, but probably not much louder than the drives themselves.That said, I think some trade offs were made to fit 5 instead of only 3 in this space and the price was the best for this configuration, with shipping less than a month, at the time of purchase. It was nice to have the cables included.There are now competitors that are 15% cheaper with entirely metal frames that I would try before purchasing this again.

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.