StarTech.com 2 Drive 2.5in Trayless Hot Swap SATA Mobile Rack Backplane - Dual Drive SATA Mobile Rack Enclosure for 3.5 HDD (HSB220SAT25B),Black

I installed this on my old desktop rig for a backup system. We have the same setup at the office to back up our server. The top slot runs an incremental backup every minute on a 1 Tb SSD Samsung drive and the bottom slot has a full daily copy on a second SSD. Every night before I leave the office, I swap out the lower drive with another SSD drive and take the daily copy off site (home). I've had to access information off the drive before from home, so I set up a similar system there. The top slot has a smaller SSD drive for a daily backup, and the bottom slot is empty unless I need to access the office drive. I just open the slot, insert the office drive and I'm ready to go.The tray was very easy to install, although I did have to buy the 3.5 to 5.25 mounting bracket to fit it into my DVD bay. Depending on the type of case you have and how much space you have to work with, it could get tricky. I bought this over a year ago (12/7/15) and haven't had any problems. I've had no issues with the spring tray covers. At work, I open the bottom tray every day to swap out the daily backup drive, so it's gotten a lot of use with no problems. My OS at home (Windows 8.1) seems to find the drives just fine. I would definitely recommend this product.

Easy front panel access when using laptop size SSDs. Easy in and out, the door that pivots to lock the drive-in doesn't necessarily feel as strong as it should be. I'm always cautious/light handed when changing out drives. Holding up well with one or two uses per day.

I was concerned that this bay could run at SATA 6.0Gb/s. I only bought it because this was my first build using SSDs and I questioned SSD reliability (definitely NO SandForce controllers). So I bought 2 Samsung SSDs, installed them directly connected to the motherboard first and ran both "AS SSD" and "Crystal Bench Mark" benchmarking utilities.After recording the numbers, I inserted the SSDs into this StarTech bay. The Samsung SSDs inserted very easily (a really nice fit)and ejected the same way. After running the benchmark utilities again, the benchmarking numbers were the same! The backplane is totally passive - meaning that it will not increase or impede the speed of the drives installed. This bay WILL NOT affect the throughput of the devices. Although the label states "maximum data transfer rates up to 3.0 Gbps", it will run at 6.0 Gbps.I didn't buy this for hot-swapping but "cold-swapping" would be a breeze. Perfect for the newer SSDs which tend to use a lower profile. Samsung SSDs are 0.28 inch high or 7mm. This StarTech Hot Swap Bay will accommodate SSDs that are taller than the Samsung ones that I'm using. The bay is heavy metal, very solid feeling, and fits in a 3.5 inch floppy bay. The doors appear to be plastic but seem sturdy enough for daily home usage.The price seems a bit high but it does everything it's suppose to do. Hot-swap for this bay means that it is capable of PHYSICALLY hot-swapping your storage devices. Hot swapping itself is totally dependent on your operating system's configuration and hardware setup. I'm very happy that I chose this bay.

Everything about it was perfect until I later removed it from its bay intending to place it in a different system. Unplugging the bottom LED power connector resulted in not only the plastic receptacle breaking away from the PCB but one of the four pins as well, rendering it incredibly difficult to repair. As if that weren't bad enough, unplugging the top bay's SATA power connector resulted in several small bits of receptacle crumbling away, including most of the the key (meaning that power connectors plugged into it either fall out immediately, or stay barely connected and liable to cause a short later on).As a nice little cherry on top, the return window for this heap of trash has since ended.Do not buy this despite its enticing price tag. It will not last.

This device does exactly what it's supposed to do for my application. The tray comes with all of the screws, power and data cables needed to install and connect the tray to your system. My case is tool-less so I didn't need to use the included screws but am glad they came with it. I use this device with one drive as my main O/S and the other for troubleshooting other laptop drives or copying data to my internal storage array. The device says it's supports SATA hot-Swap but my motherboard or internal array controller doesn't so I won't be trying that functionality.The latch mechanisms on the tray works great when a drive is installed but one always seems to get a little stuck when a drive is not present in the bay and I have to use both hands to get it open, not a show stopper for me, but i can see how it could cause a little trouble for some. Maybe I just need to readjust part of the metal housing that the latch uses to lock the drive in the tray to fix the problem, but I'm fine with the way it works since it will keep the kids from opening the tray and putting objects in them.

Cables do not latch securely and come off during install. After pain of install works easily.