Single HDD Mounting Bay

Solution
Assuming you have a vacant 5 1/4" external bay available on your Corsair case you might want to consider installing a mobile rack in the bay to house a removable HDD or SSD.

We've been using mobile racks in virtually every desktop PC we've built for about the past 15 years. The particular mobile rack we've used is this one available at Newegg...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995104

While it's designed to house a 3 1/2" HDD it's easily modified to accommodate a SSD as well.

Rookie_MIB

Distinguished
I would personally take an old case and take a dremel and a drill to it. Cut out the old 3.5 mounting brackets, place a 120mm or 140mm fan on top. Drill matching holes. Cut the mounting bracket to the minimum height needed. Then mount it.

:)

But you're also talking to someone who took an old computer case, flipped it sideways, made a completely new face panel for it, put mounting ears on it, turned the drive mounts sideways on it, welded those to the bottom for stability, made custom brackets for it internally, and turned it into a 4u rackmount case.

Mad welding and fabricating skills have I young padawan. :)
 

GregS0125

Reputable
Sep 5, 2014
64
0
4,640


Well I don't want to actually use the fan slot for a fan. What I want to do is replace the triple HDD mount bay with a single HDD mount bay so that it no longer interferes with the front fan intake. and also so it makes the case look sleeker.
 

Rookie_MIB

Distinguished
Ahhh - got it. Hmm... what kind of case do you have to start with?

What you could do if you have a 5.25 bay is use that adapter you found at Amazon to mount your HDD (or SSD) into the 5.25 bay, then usually the 3.5 cage is removable. That would be preferable than chopping things apart.
 
Assuming you have a vacant 5 1/4" external bay available on your Corsair case you might want to consider installing a mobile rack in the bay to house a removable HDD or SSD.

We've been using mobile racks in virtually every desktop PC we've built for about the past 15 years. The particular mobile rack we've used is this one available at Newegg...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995104

While it's designed to house a 3 1/2" HDD it's easily modified to accommodate a SSD as well.
 
Solution

GregS0125

Reputable
Sep 5, 2014
64
0
4,640


While I was looking for more of an internal solution, I can not deny that this method is just as good or better then what I was planning. Mounting a hard drive to a flimsy fan slot is just asking for loud vibrations when the disc starts to spin up anyway. I think I will use this as my solution. And it gives me access to other bays for mass long term storage back ups and things which I love.
 
I can virtually guarantee that you will never regret installing one or more mobile racks in your desktop PC to house one or more removable HDDs or SSDs.

Just about every user we're aware of who uses this type of hardware configuration hardly ever returns to the "old way" of installing their HDD(s)/SSD(s) internally in their systems.

Consider the advantages...

1. The beauty of installing removable HDD/SSDs in a desktop PC is that the user can easily work with multiple drives each effectively isolated from each other (when desired) containing different operating systems (if desired) and accommodating different storage/backup needs.

2. Through a simple turn of a mobile rack's keylock or pressing its power switch the user can thus boot to this drive or that drive without the need for any "bootloader" or any other multi-booting software, as well as avoiding the need (in most cases) to access the motherboard's BIOS to change the boot priority order in order to boot to this or that particular HDD.

3. With removable HDD/SSDs the desktop PC users have an UNLIMITED number of drives to work with should they choose without the need for opening their computer cases to install the drive in the machine. Again, each removable drive is isolated from the other drives at the user's option.

4. Should a removable HDD/SSD become defective/dysfunctional that needs to be removed & replaced in the system, it's a simple & quick process for a user to remove & replace it from the comfort of his or her computer chair.

We've been particularly partial to the Athena Power MR-125PB model that I mentioned above...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995104
The mobile rack is a two-piece affair - the removable tray and the rack itself which is affixed to the desktop PC's 5 1/4" bay (identical to affixing an optical drive or some such 5 1/4" device).

An enormous advantage (for us) of this particular mobile rack is that unlike most HDD/SSD mobile racks that are on the market, the Athena Power model is equipped with an ON-OFF power switch button, a most desirable feature in our opinion. Assuming a user is working with multiple removable hard drives in their mobile racks (or has also installed a fixed internally-connected hard drive), it's a simple matter to press the ON-OFF button and "on-the-fly" temporarily disable one or more of the mobile rack's hard drives without the need of using the rack's lever to remove the rack's tray (caddy) containing the HDD from the rack's internal SATA power/data connectors.

Of course should the user choose to do so it's a relatively simple matter to press the removable tray's lever release button and thus physically disconnect the removable tray containing the tray's HDD/SSD SATA data/power connectors from the mobile rack's connectors. A simple pull of the tray's lever is all that is necessary.

Because of this rack's ON-OFF power button switch there's no need for a keylock mechanism that's found on virtually every other mobile rack. Personally, I've always found those keylocks to be a decided annoyance in my day-to-day operation of a PC.

The rack contains a small fan that is dead silent in operation.

I've never encountered a single problem with the mobile rack's solid plastic construction. It's a sturdy piece of equipment in my experience. As far as I'm concerned its light weight is a decided plus.

Cons: Unfortunately this mobile rack is designed to only house a 3 1/2" hard drive in its removable tray. Four screws are provided to secure the hard drive in the tray (although truth to tell since we frequently switch HDDs we rarely ever use any of these screws and simply slip the HDD in the tray unsecured - connects perfectly to the rack's SATA power/data connectors).

As indicated, the mobile rack is not designed to house a SSD (2 1/2"). Like many users we've been continually switching over to SSDs and pretty much phasing out our 3 1/2" HDDs. We've been able to install our SSDs in the removable trays by using hard foam inserts (the kind of foam usually found in packaging materials) and so far they've worked pretty well. Heavy-duty packaging tape is another option.

We've also drilled two small holes in the base of the removable tray, lining them up with the front screw holes of an SSD so as to secure the SSD to the removable tray. (The placement of these SSD screw holes is standard for both 7mm & 9mm SSDs). But of course it would be so much more desirable for the device to be designed so that it could accommodate both 2 1/2" & 3 1/2" drives. Judging from the current design of the removable tray it would appear that a relatively simple manufacturing modification of the tray would allow the installation of either size drive.
(For some time we've been badgering the device's manufacturer to incorporate this simple modification, but, alas, to no avail.)
 

Rookie_MIB

Distinguished
I have two of the IcyDock hotswap adapters. I have the 3x5.25bay -> 5HDD adapter and the 2x5.25bay -> 3HDD adapter. Both are very handy for accessing the drives - the 5HDD bay is in my rackmounted NAS system and is much easier than trying to shut down the NAS, remove it from the rack (it's a 4U chassis), open it up, unmount the drive cage... you get the idea.

ArtPog said:
We've also drilled two small holes in the base of the removable tray, lining them up with the front screw holes of an SSD so as to secure the SSD to the removable tray. (The placement of these SSD screw holes is standard for both 7mm & 9mm SSDs). But of course it would be so much more desirable for the device to be designed so that it could accommodate both 2 1/2" & 3 1/2" drives. Judging from the current design of the removable tray it would appear that a relatively simple manufacturing modification of the tray would allow the installation of either size drive.

IcyDock also makes a 1x5.25 -> 4x2.5" SSD/HDD hotswap cage for fitting four SSDs or HDDs into a single 5.25 bay and a 1x5.25 -> 2x2.5" hotswap cage as well. I'm sure those are pre-drilled for the right holes. :)