Vantec EZ Swap bay

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Corporal79

Gawd
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Oct 28, 2004
Messages
889
I bought a couple of these bays for some 500gb drives I have. It came with a wire with three ends on it, one plugs into the back of the bay, and I'm trying to figure out the others. One looks like it connects to the motherboard so it can report HD activity. I'm kind of confused though, there will be three drives, one OS, and two 500gb drives for data.

Looks like the motherboard only has one jumper for HDD access which I would like the OS drive to be on. The LCD on they bay can show activity for drive in the bay which means I need two more of those. Where would I connect these?

Here is the documentation...
http://www.vantecusa.com/system/application/media/data_file/mrk-200st_user_manual.pdf

Section 1-4 is what I'm talking about
 
Don't you just daisy chain them? I just got two of these myself (damn you, [H] TV) an it looks like they just chain together. That was the first thing I thought of as well. I haven't actually plugged them in yet though.
 
hm you might be right about daisy chaining them, I need to play around with them. Still though even if daisy chained wouldn't you still need two sets of mobo jumpers unless your OS HDD was in one of these coolers?

and yes, damn [H] TV forced my hand to buy these :D
 
I think I misunderstood you. I don't have them assembled yet. I did wire it all up earlier to double check connectors, and it looked ok (mobo->male end cable #1, white connector on cable #1 to swap bay 1, female end cable #1 to male end cable #2, white connector on cable #2 to swap bay 2, male end on cable #2 to female end of case HDD LED wire).

I think the point is that you can have all the activity indicators going at once (when the activity wires are chained, from mobo->bay1->bay2->case LED), but you want (and it would indeed be preferable) to have only the activity on the active bay going off?

I'm surprised nobody else has these to comment on.
 
wildfire99 said:
Don't you just daisy chain them?
Click to expand...

That's exactly what you're supposed to do. I tried it but I didn't like the excess wires in my case so I just rely on the bay itself for access activity. I'm back down to one anyhow now.
 
It looks like you also can do a point->point HDD LED hookup using the two-pin connector on the back of each bay (the one above the white connector) if you want specific case-only connections. That's quite flexible. I did finally hook them up... the key thing is meh but I understand how it's important. It also seems like those little fans are too loud for a quiet PC.
 
finally got them up and running, after messing around with the HDD access wire I ditched the idea all together. I do have a fan on one of my bays making some sort of grinding noise every now and again but other than that the two 500gb drives are holding between 28 and 29 degrees celsius. I think they look awesome but I'm not sure if I'll need to replace the one bay making noise already
 
The build quality on these is really poor. I've had the two set up and running now for a few days. They do help contain HDD temps, though not as much as just setting them in front of a 120mm fan. The handles suck, the bay itself is not truly square on either, and the hinged door sticks on one and won't come down, and neither bay accepts the drive caddy without some persuasion. Getting them in and out is hardly something I'd expect to be able to do for years without something (especially the chintzy lever) breaking.

However, the worst thing of all is the fan noise. OMG. They are three times as loud as anything else in the case, and there's a freaking 4870x2 in there as well. What's really annoying is each bay has its own unique pitch. I really want to keep the front panel display and ease of access but I don't know if this is going to work on a home system that I have next to me all day. Are there any other bay solutions I can look at that don't have the noise?

I never could get the HDD access light to work either. I've wired it up every which way and I get no case HDD LED, but since the bays have their own light, it's not an issue.
 
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