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(5th Hard Drive in Optical Bay) Where to get adapter 5.25-3.5"

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phildog33

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2006
109
0
Hey guys,

I was able to manuveur a new sata cable under the fan assembly and connect it the mac pro ON Board Sata connector

Im close to installing a new Hitachi 1tb drive in the optical bay, using the molex power connector there, and my new sata dongle connector.

Question: Where do I get that adapter for 5.25" to 3.5" for the hard drive to mount in the optical bay???

Ive been googling for 1 hour and I found

1. Noiseblocker NB X-Swing $25 -- Hard to find anywhere in USA to buy it
2. TransItnernational Pro Caddy -- $39 -- and No noise dampening.. just big cage
3. The metal rails that come with many ex hard drives.. 5.25" to 3.5" standard brackets... $9.. looks like this causes the most noise problems

Can you guys recommend which one/where to get my last ingredient for the 5th drive install in the mac pro optical bay

Thanks
P
 
I just used those cheapo metal bracket things I found in my bin of parts. Works and quiet.
 
The drive isn't that loud, is it? I didn't have a Hitachi in the 2nd optical bay, it was a Seagate, but I didn't use anything special either. Just a standard PC hard drive mounting bracket.

The TransIntl bracket is mainly for the IDE drives, so the drive is positioned where it can connect to the cable the easiest. It looks like it is well-made, but for SATA drives, not necessarily any more useful than a standard cheapie metal bracket.
 
I think you'll probably do OK. None of the other drives in a Mac Pro are specially shock mounted, I don't see why the 5th hard drive needs to be.
 
bigbossbmb said:
mmm $15 for option one or $39 for a procaddy?

or $69 with an adapter and then you could run the sata drive through the pata interface! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I think they're all valid options, depending on what you want. If you want to use a SATA drive, it's an alternative to having to jigger out two shell pieces, remove the front fan assembly, connect and route a SATA cable and reassembling it. And then undoing it all to remove the cable if you want to bring the Mac Pro in for warranty service, it's probably not good to leave them with the impression that you've done that significant of a disassembly of the computer. If it's just a media drive like I did, the added performance of native SATA really doesn't matter.
 
bigbossbmb said:
mmm $15 for option one or $39 for a procaddy?

or $69 with an adapter and then you could run the sata drive through the pata interface! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Would running the SATA through PATA be slower? Could I boot off of it? I've got a spare Raptor 150 and don't use it due to its size.
 
jazz1 said:
Would running the SATA through PATA be slower? Could I boot off of it? I've got a spare Raptor 150 and don't use it due to its size.
Click to expand...
The post was sarcastic. :eek: :p

But Yes, SATA to PATA would be slower. :eek: You can boot from either interface. :)
 
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