2.5" to 5.25" bay bracket?

I

Impulse

[H]F Junkie
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I'm looking for a 2.5" to 5.25" bay adapter or bracket. I've seen a few 2.5" to 3.5" adapters (for SSD or otherwise), but no 2.5" to 5.25"...

Even most of the cheap 2.5"->3.5" adapters currently seem to be out of stock at Newegg. See here, here or here. The only cheap one currently available is this one and it seems decidedly less secure than the rest... More importantly, less likely to fit securely into a tool-less bay. I've also seen a few 3.5" to 5.25" brackets like this one, along with others I've seen locally that are meant for floppy drives or media card readers (I think I even have an old beige one myself).

What I'm really looking for however is a 2.5" to 5.25" adapter so I can stick my SSD (which really doesn't require much cooling) outside of the path of the main intake fan and free up more airflow for the rest of the case... Has anyone seen such an adapter?

I suppose that at 'least two of the aforementioned adapters could fit and be stuck together to form a 2.5" to 5.25" bay... Tho I'd be paying $15 for something that has gotta cost like a dollar to make. :p At that point I'd rather just velcro the SSD I think, heh.
 
Thanks, that looks to be exactly what I was looking for, and it says they even ship to Puerto Rico (hopefully it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to do so), guess I've been relying on Newegg a bit too much. Looks a little taller than a standard 5.25" bay but it says it only occupies one unless you install a fan so it should be perfect...
 
Looking around I found this one as well, which looks somewhat nicer (metal vs. plastic) but it's not cheap at $18... Altho I have a feeling that they'll ship it to PR for significantly less ($6) than XPCGear (which is charging me like $8-10 to ship it anywhere in the US, gotta e-mail them to find out the shipping rate to PR); so the difference comes out to something like $7... Still kinda significant for something that should cost $7. :p

I'm still looking around, if I end up ordering the retail X25-M I think it comes with a 3.5"-to-5.25" adapter and I might be able to finagle that unto a cheaper 2.5"-to-3.5" adapter... Gotta wait 'till tomorrow to call them and see what's up with the prices on the X25-M G2. I'd be willing to pay $250 for the retail version but they hiked it up to $280 before it went out of stock and now that it's back it's at a mind boggling $500-$600 depending on the version, heh.
 
ASDFG Thanks!! That's the same exact one I just linked in my last post, only at half the price, not sure why I couldn't find that specific bracket at Newegg before. I'll probably order that one and save on shipping, thanks again, you saved me a couple of bucks.
 
That bracket is news to me. I was originally planning to use the plastic one as well but seeing that there's a Li Li version, things change a bit and would go nicely with my V1200 :)
 
Impulse said:
ASDFG Thanks!! That's the same exact one I just linked in my last post, only at half the price, not sure why I couldn't find that specific bracket at Newegg before. I'll probably order that one and save on shipping, thanks again, you saved me a couple of bucks.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure some indilinix SSDs come with a bracket (patriot torqx comes to mind, not sure about any others).
 
black0ut said:
I'm fairly sure some indilinix SSDs come with a bracket (patriot torqx comes to mind, not sure about any others).
Click to expand...

They come with a 2.5" to 3.5" bracket AFAIK, same as the G2 Intel drive (if retail boxed), but not a 2.5" to 5.25" which is what I'm looking for.

flyz said:
That bracket is news to me. I was originally planning to use the plastic one as well but seeing that there's a Li Li version, things change a bit and would go nicely with my V1200 :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, it does look nicer than the plastic one, unfortunately it went out of stock at Newegg before I had a chance to order it this morning (it sold out literally in between when I made my previous post and when I woke up to order it along w/a few other things, ugh). They don't have an ETA either, I'll probably wait 'till I have to order something else from Newegg and see if it's back, if not I'll probably end up overpaying for it at one of the other places I linked before.
 
Hotswap looks hawt. But yeah, $46.99 is kinda steep for something more or less unnecessary...
 
Heh, yeah, I can't imagine why I would need to be yanking my OS drive out at any point once it's set up. Still waiting for the Li-Li bracket to arrive, along with my X25-M, argh, waiting all week is gonna kill me!
 
I just picked up the scythe plastic adapter for 2 x 2.5 to 1 3.5in... it works fine and was under $10. It's what I was looking for to fit 2 laptop sata drives in an internal 3.5. Previously I used a couple of the external versions like this but under diff names and cheaper. They work great as replacements for floppy drives. Sometimes they're listed under the server/raid system section on Newegg.
I also have several of the 4 in 1 enclosures distributed by someone else... I picked them up on sale from Microcenter for under $50. They were the SAS versions and allow me to use only one 4pin molex for power. They work fine with normal laptop drives altho the racks are little bit flimsy. There is a plastic strip that's used to guide the rack in and if it cracks, or the uber small screw falls it, it can be difficult to insert. I am using 2 of those in my new portable server.

The Lian li brack is interesting... seems kinda like a waste of space to only fit 2 drives, but that might be needed for SSD/SAS drives. I'd prob just go w/the hotswap ones for under $50. it does look cooler and is easier to use.
 
Well I wanted a 2.5"-to-5.25" bracket specifically to avoid using my 3.5" bays at all, since the intake fan sits behind them (in fact the 5 drive 3.5" bay cage is what the fan attaches to, and the cage can be shifted up or down the 5.25" bays on the case)... So while it's a waste of space within that one 5.25" bay, it allows me to leave a clear path for the intake fan thru the 3.5" cage and I can put the SSD below it... My data HDD sits below on the lowest 5.25" bay decoupled on a slab of foam. Basically...

<-back | front->
=media card reader=
=optical drive=
=optical drive=
=3.5" cage=120mm fan=
=3.5" cage=120mm fan=
=3.5" cage=120mm fan=
=SSD on 2.5"-to-3.5" bracket=
=empty=
=640GB HDD on slab of foam=

Another upside is that the intake fan on the 3.5" cage sits mid-way up the case instead of at the very bottom, so air travels in a more direct path over the GPU/memory/CPU. :D I'd take a picture but the case is in pieces right now and my SSD/bracket haven't arrived, heh.
 
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I have the Scythe Plastic 2 drive adapter, and to be honest it is pretty crappy, and unless you need to fit 2 drives in one bay I would avoid it. It works fine for the first set of drives, but just feels like if you keep swapping drives around it just isn't going to hold up.

I would go for the metal adapters by Silverstone or Lian Li, or even the StarTech one over the plastic Scythe one.

It works, but I was very disappointed in using it.

Edit: I thought it was the 2.5 to 3.5 Scythe one linked. Either way, it doesn't look like the build quality (plastic) changed much between them, so my criticisms would probably still stand. But if it fits what you need then just go for it. Just don't constantly swap, as the plastic probably won't hold up.
 
Thanks for sharing that, even more glad I went with the metal Li-Li now (tho I did it for looks more than anything, heh, I don't plan to mess with it much).
 
I got the Lian-Li bracket in last week btw, and it's just what I was looking for... It seems the tool-less 5.25" bay fitting mechanisms on my Thermaltake case are a lil' too wide to use with it but the outer screw holes on the Lian-Li bracket are well threaded so I can just use screws and it's no big deal. Fortunately the case still has screw holes for this purpose and it has two long slits instead of holes for the two back screws so a perfect alignment isn't necessary.

Anyway, as far as the bracket itself, it seems very sturdy, no sharp edges (they're all rolled or polished), comes with like 10 screws, and looks nice, can't ask for more. It's pretty compact too so it fits well within the bay w/o taking up unnecessary space out the back or w/e (nice for the cable management nuts amongst us, and for those with small cases). Highly recommended, 'specially in light of some of the comments above about the plastic brackets.
 
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