Rick Lindstrom wrote:
>
>Does anyone know a source for the hardware to make
>a hard drive removable (I think it's called a caddy)?


Rick:

Most computer parts stores carry them; email me privately
if you are in the South Florida area and I'll tell you
where you can get them locally.

There are two popular, consumer mobile racks types,
neither really have a name brand attached. One has
model numbers beginning with VP- and the other with
RH-, and I prefer the VP- make. These two makes
(VP- comes in a white box with rainbow colored print
and details; RH- comes in a green box with a picture
of the Earth on it) are not interchangeable. Both
cost under $15 wholesale; perhaps $20-25 retail.
Both are plastic.

Both brands can be had with cooling fans (recommended),
but I prefer the VP- make because you don't need to
"lock" the caddy to power it; the RH- make requires
it to be locked to enable power. This makes the VP
hot-swappable (careful; this feature depends on the
drive) and more convenient if you misplace the key, but
I suppose one could re-wire the RH- model to do the same.

Also, the VP- has a top brace to stiffen the drive cage
and also has a door which springs into place when the
drive caddy is removed (prevents dust and small animals
from entering the case through the open bay).

Finally, the VP- model has an optional caddy with a
3.5" external opening so you can swap in a ZIP, LS-120,
or other removable-media IDE drive. A great way to
share such drives.

I use the VP-s at home. My college uses the RH-s (probably
better since a student might inadvertently try to remove a
drive with the power on).

The biggest issue using these mobile racks with IDE
drives is to plan out your drive(s) use, so the drive
select jumper settings of the internal (fixed) drives can
remain permanent.

I use two racks on my main home PC. One is the boot drive
(so I can boot DOS, Windows 98 or Windows NT by switching
drives) sharing IDE-1 with a slave hard drive. The other
rack is on IDE-2 as the slave to the IDE CD-ROM drive which
can operate as a master AND a solo drive with the SAME drive
select jumper setting). That way, the slave rack can be used
or left empty.

All four of my computers have racks and I find this very
useful.

HTH.

Regards,

John Chin

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