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General discussion

hard drive swap bay gets unstable.

Jan 14, 2012 8:07PM PST

Having any experiences regarding 3.5" hard drives and swap-bays?
I'm changing hard drives back and forth.
I have used a sata cable and power supply cable from the desk top directly.
After some time and swapping, it's stop working. Often it's the power supply connector
that gets unstable.
Apparently the power supply connector gets sloppy, and I have to bend the hard drive
power connector. Then it will run again, at least for a period of time.
At some point the power supply connector is so sloppy, that it can't be use anymore.
Then I built in a sata swap bay. Some hard drive power connectors had to be bend,
after that and at first the swap bay solution worked. After some time, hard drive connectors
have to be bend, in order to make them keep on working.
First I thought my hard drives one by one got damaged, but after a while I found out,
that the power supply connector was sloppy. Now I can't manage to
bend the hard drive power connector so it will run again. I have to use another connector on
the power supply. My question is, if others have experienced this problem and
are there solutions?

Discussion is locked

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Yes.
Jan 15, 2012 2:30AM PST

The connections are rated for about 500 uses. Even if you did this daily that's over a year for most. As you know this you replace the parts when they go bad.
Bob

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How many drives are you swapping in and out and
Jan 21, 2012 12:07AM PST

how many 5.25" drive bays does your PC have (exlcude the one with the CD/DVD) ?

For example, could you add another swappable frame...put all the HDDs in and only turn on only the one you want to run/use ?

VAPCMD

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Docking ports
Jan 23, 2012 1:30AM PST

You should start thinking of a "HD docking station". These are SATA based and all you need then to do is connect it and it has an open dock(s) for you to drop HD in. That way, you don't physically connect anything as it were. It will nest in the dock and fall into place. However, like everything else, if you are a frequent docking user, anything can happen. I appears you already on the basic level did the physical connection which a docking station provides as a fix, its just drop and go. Check them out, otherwise, those simple SATA connectors get broken and if on the HD, a bad drive is made.

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hard drive swap bay gets unstable
Jan 24, 2012 9:31PM PST

Thanks for answering.
I would prefer an internal solution. 500 swaps, that is not much. For security reasons, it's
important, that not used hard drives are not connected to the computer.
I found out, it's the pins in the power supply connector that over time get squeezed. Using a
needle, it's possible to bent them back. But it's probably not a reliable solution.