StarTech unveils Hot-Swap Drive Bay enclosure and adapter for HDD or SSD

While internal hard drives are great if you are OK with data remaining in a computer 24/7, sometimes you want to physically secure data at the end of the day. No, I don't mean encryption; I am talking literally locking a hard drive or solid state disk in a safe or desk drawer. This is essential for some businesses, where theft of a drive could be catastrophic.

Today, Startech unveils a clever new product that makes this practice easy. It is a 2.5-inch drive enclosure that plugs into a bay adapter on the front of a PC. The adapter itself can fit in both 3.5- or 5.25-inch openings thanks to the included accessory. While the drive connects to the adapter via SATA, the enclosure also has a micro-B USB 3.1 port. In other words, it can be easily removed and then connected to a PC that doesn't have the bay adapter.

"The drive bay offers USB 3.1 (10Gbps) connectivity speeds, which provides fast performance and enables quick access to data. Front access to the removable enclosure provides users with the ability to quickly install or remove drives, and to access the drive without the need to open the backplane or enclosure. The mobile drive bay allows hot swapping, offering a convenient solution for drive maintenance for interchangeability of data between multiple systems," says StarTech.

The company also says, "This drive bay is easy to install, which is useful for system integrators, installers or builders who want to incorporate this product into their system build or solution. This product is also ideal for industrial or enterprise storage applications such as data backup, recovery, and archiving, and especially useful for IT professionals who need to regularly replace or remove drives, such as in server rooms and data centers."

Startech shares the following features and benefits.

• USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Type-A and Type-C) connectivity
• SATA III (6Gbps) drive interface; compatible with SATA revisions I/II/III
• Supports one (1) 2.5-inch SATA hard drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD); supports drive heights up to 9.5 mm
• Well-built, durable aluminum construction
• Front-mount bay design; can be mounted and installed into any standard 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch front bay; includes a 2.5-inch SATA removable external enclosure
• Push-button drive ejection
• Hot-swappable enclosure; easy to swap a drive into and out of the mobile backplane
• LED indicator for power and drive activity
• Plug-and-play functionality; no driver or software installation required

The immediate question I ask myself is, why not just use USB and skip the bay adapter entirely? After all, the enclosure features USB 3.1 gen 2, so both HDD and SSD drives should reach their full speed potential this way -- there is no apparent benefit to SATA.

Well, some organizations block USB storage by policy, meaning a USB-only enclosure would not be ideal. When connected to the bay adapter, the PC will see the drive as nothing more than a SATA drive, making StarTech's product compatible.

The Hot-Swap Drive Bay from StarTech should be available at many retailers soon for $73. Included is both a micro-B to Type-A and micro-B to Type-C cable, so that the enclosure can be attached to either port. A four-pin power adapter and SATA data cable will found in the box too. Additional enclosures for hot-swapping are priced at $55 each.