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For those of us who are SSD RAID enthusiasts, case mounting solutions for our RAID arrays now have a new option — utilize one of your empty 5.25″ bays to hold up to fours SSDs with the new Sharkoon Bay Extension! Most cases on the market (whether they be mini-tower, midtower, or full tower) feature multiple 5.25″ exterior drive bays. Other than an optical drive, and possibly a fan controller panel, most of the bays end up being unused. You can now improve the air flow (and cooling) within your case by mounting your SSDs (or SSDs and an HDD) in one of these unused 5.25″ bays and free up those slots in the drive cages.
Many cases have at least one drive cage that is removable; some let you remove all of them. Front intake fans often have their air flow at least partially blocked by the drive cages, and even more so when the drive trays within those cages are populated with SSDs or HDDs. Removing at least the lower cage allows you to both install a potentially longer graphics cards, and improve the airflow coming into the case. Moving your SSDs (and/or an HDD) into an upper 5.25″ bay not only moves the drive(s) themselves, but also moves the associated cabling up and out of the way of the airflow from the front intake fan(s).
The Sharkoon Bay Extension is an all-steel bay adapter, with rubber grommets pre-installed for the HDD mounting holes. SSDs being mostly vibration-proof, grommets are not required for the SSD mounting holes. The Bay Extension allows for the simultaneous installation of up to four 2.5″ SSDs or HDDs. The Bay Extension gives you several flexible options — mount either a single HDD and two SSDs (with the HDD mounting decoupled); or mount two, three or four SSDs in a single Bay Extension. The top side of the bay adapter holds two SSDs mounted side by side, and the underside allows for mounting of a 3.5″ HDD, a 3.5″ HDD stacked vertically with an SSD, or two SSDs stacked vertically. The Bay Extension mounts in a standard 5.25″ external drive bay using four fine thread screws (included) that line up with the standard 5.25″ bay drive mounting holes. All required accessories as well as a manual are supplied with the Sharkoon Bay Extension.
The Sharkoon Bay Extension is 116mm long, by 146mm wide, by37mm high and weighs around 150 grams. It is available in black, red, green or blue to allow continuity of color themes. the package includes the Bay Extension, 4 x decouplers, 4 x coarse thread screws for 3.5″ HDD mounting, 16 x fine thread screws for mounting 2.5″ SSDs or HDDs, 4 x fine thread screws to mount the bay adapter into an available external drive bay, and the all-important instruction manual. Look for the Sharkoon Bay Extension to be available in the near future from your favorite PC component retailer or e-tailer. Pricing has not yet been announced. The Sharkoon Bay Extension product page can be viewed here.
