Mounting hard drives backwards?

Reading through my favorite pc forum sites, I encountered this thread about mounting your hard disk drives backwards .For many casual PC users the concept of mounting a hard drive backwards may sound very strange and even impractical. First of all, practically everyone has seen hard drives inserted only one way, with the pins sticking out into the inside of the case and not facing the front of the case. For them, the very idea alone will be quite hard to grasp. Secondly, with the pins facing the front of the case, it will be virtually impossible to get at the pins and cables without physically removing the hard drive from the hard drive bays – a very cumbersome task.

But why do PC case modders do this? For the very simple reason of better cable management. By actually putting the hard drive backwards all of the pins will be hidden by the drive bay and the front of the case, what you end up seeing is the front of the hard drive itself which is just one smooth and level piece. From an aesthetic point of view, it is a definite winner. I have seen a modded case that used this kind of solution and it really does look pretty. Additionally, putting the cables at the front allows for more creative solutions to actually hide those cables from view, which results in a very clean looking case. I have seen one modder do this and he was able to manage the cable in such a way that at first look you would think he was not using any cables except the wires that run from the PSU to the motherboard. It looked absolutely awesome.