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What kit to mount 5th hard-drive in Optical Drivebay?

You could also DIY one out of an old CD/DVD drive. Just disassemble it for the metal plates that make up the enclosure. One of them works quite nicely if you drill a few holes to mount the drive to it. It will obviously fit a 5.25" bay quite nicely. ;)

Rather easy, fast, and cheap. Free if you've got a drive lying around. Dead is ideal, but so is ancient that you'll never use. :p
 
Chad H said:
I'm assuming you need an adapter, does the maxupgrades kit come with one?
Click to expand...

I believe it comes with the enclosure, 2 SATA trays, and 2 SATA cables to attach to the motherboard - in this configuration, you still use the ATA connector for your SuperDrive, so I will lose out on the ability to install a SATA DVD burner (Blu-Ray) in the future.

I'm not concerned about that - it's much more important to me to have 6 internal drive bays. I'll post pics soon.

JP
 
A word of warning to those who are going to use one or two of the ODD-SATA ports in MacPro1,1 (2006/2007). There is no space there between the fan box and the logic board for a conventional SATA cable. For a single cable you can use a 90° conector. If you are going to use two ports you should make a little cut out in the injection molded fan box above them. That is what I did. I used a metal saw to make the two parallel incisions and a strong carpet knife to make the perpendicular cut. I did not have a Dremel, but that would have been the best tool for that job. The material is probably ABS so expect its melting point around 200 °C if you plan to cut it with a heated tool. Do not over heat it too much.

If you use a standard connector and squeeze it between the fan box and the logic board there is the risk of bending the logic board and breaking an internal connection. Remember logic boards are 650$ a pop.
 
gugucom said:
A word of warning to those who are going to use one or two of the ODD-SATA ports in MacPro1,1 (2006/2007). There is no space there between the fan box and the logic board for a conventional SATA cable. For a single cable you can use a 90° conector. If you are going to use two ports you should make a little cut out in the injection molded fan box above them. That is what I did. I used a metal saw to make the two parallel incisions and a strong carpet knife to make the perpendicular cut. I did not have a Dremel, but that would have been the best tool for that job. The material is probably ABS so expect its melting point around 200 °C if you plan to cut it with a heated tool. Do not over heat it too much.

If you use a standard connector and squeeze it between the fan box and the logic board there is the risk of bending the logic board and breaking an internal connection. Remember logic boards are 650$ a pop.
Click to expand...

Good to know. Luckily I only need to mount a 5th drive! I will order a 90-degree connector as well.
 
Pics and review are up...

I got the MaxConnect kit installed yesterday, if you're curious. I now have 6 drives installed with good ventilation. Pictorial install guide and review here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/769785/

JP
 

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