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Genica Removable Hard drive Bay
Review Date: July 17, 2002
Reviewed by: Scott Dowling
Sponsored by: Genica
There are several versions of this type hardware out that you can purchase. I choose the Genica version for a few reasons. 1. It was the only type the store I work at carries. 2. Retail on it was only $14.99. And 3. I got it for the great employee discount price of $7..
Features:
- Takes all UDMA/100, UDMA/66, UDMA/33, Standard IDE Devices
- Very high quality and specially designed for UDMA/100/66 drives (is downward compatible)
- For 3.5 Inch Hard Drives, Zip, LS-120 etc
- Mounts into a 5.25 inch bay
- UKeylock (Two Keys Included) Prevents Unauthorized Access
- Dust cover pops into place when drive is removed
- One Cooling fan built into drive rack
When you first pull the hardware out from the box, you get a bag full of screws, 2 keys, and the drive bay. (Small note: The drive bay rails pictured do not come with it, those are from my case.).
The unit itself is sturdy. It has 2 basic functioning parts to it. The first part is the outer shell. The second part is where the drive itself is stored. This part is place inside the shell, and the shell sits in a drive bay in your computer..
The outer shell has an added fan on the back (not that it will make a difference.) The fan is tied in with the power that you run into the back. You have your standard hookups on the back for your IDE cable, and your power molex. These are then transferred to the inside to proprietary hookup’s that allow easy docking.
This is the backside of the drive holder. As you can see it will easily hook up to the shell pictured above. Sliding in the holder lines it up perfectly.
This is the inside of the hard drive holder. The proprietary hookup is now converted back to your standard hookups so that you may connect the drive itself. This is where I come to the hardware’s first con. The IDE cables length makes it hard to fold it up and allow the drive to sit flat so you can put the lid back on. Small annoyance and a little playing around fixes it.
Here we see the docking station hooked into my computer. To the right we see two led's (yellow and green) and above those is the key lock. (A nice safety feature.)
After securing the drive in place, you slide the drive holder into the docking station. Flip down the latch handle, lock it in place w/ the key, and turn on your system. As long as you have your bios set to pick up the drive as auto (I set the drive to secondary slave.) You’ll have no problem with it booting up.
Pros:
- Sturdy design makes you feel confident that it’s not a plastic piece of junk.
- Key lock secures drive in place, and keeps your hard drive safe from unauthorized removal.
- Front led’s. These show you that the drive has power, and also when it is being accessed.
- Fan. Although it doesn’t do much, it does help a small amount with cooling.
Cons:
- IDE cable makes for a snug fit on the inside of the drive holder.
- Not Hot Swappable. Although this is not the fault of the hardware itself, it’s pointless to advertise it as hot swappable when most OS’s won’t support that. (Any Windows OS)
Conclusion:
I bought this out of necessity. It allows me to carry my 80 gig HD to and from work, in a nice container. It allows easy hookup of the drive anywhere that may have one of these devices. It also is nice to be able to hookup other HD’s I have lying around the house w/o having to crack the case open every time.
Rating:
Overall I give this little piece of hardware: 4 out of 5 *’s
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