New
#1
2.5" Hot Swap Bay Mod
As promised in my New Case thread, here is a fairly complete blow by blow of the mods I'm making to the Thermaltake ExtremeSpeed 3.0 which is a 2.5" HDD hot swap bay with two USB 3.0 ports connected by pass through cables. The bay was marketed as a way to get two USB 3.0 ports on the front panel back when USB 3.0 was too new for most cases to have front USB 3.0 ports and most MOBOs either didn't have USB 3.0 at all or only had it on the rear I/O panel; the swap bay was an extra bell or whistle to fill in the extra space. The USB 3.0 cables, instead of going to a 19 or 20 pin connector that would plug into a header on the MOBO, ended with type A connectors on the ends of two long cables that could be passed through the back panel of a case and plugged into USB 3.0 ports on a MOBO's rear I/O panel or into a PCI or PCI-e card that added USB 3.0 ports on the rear of the case.
Since I'm not actually going to use this in my new case (unless the built in swap bay dies), I've moved this mod to a new thread. The Thermaltake ExtremeSpeed 3.0 has been unofficially discontinued and is becoming scarce so I glommed onto six while I could.
Here is the little beast in all its glory as it came from the factory:
HDD power is via a 4 pin Molex connector on the end of a short cable and the SATA data cable is permanently attached; that is too rinkydink for my tastes so those have to go. The two USB 3.0 ports are unneeded along with their ridiculously long cables so they also need to go buh-bye.
Here is what one sees when the case is opened up.
The little white zip ties need to be snipped to liberate the cables from their bondage. The SATA data cable is a conventional cable that could be removed by lifting it up above its retaining bracket and simply pulling it out.
Here I've started removing the USB ports and cables. They are secured by two screws (one has already been removed).
To get enough wiggle room to get the USB ports out, the front panel also has to be removed. It's just held in by three clips.
The next thing to come out is the board with the SATA power and data connections on it. It's also held in by two screws (one also already removed).
The long bundle of wires going to the front panel is for the LED. It's only held with a little glob of hot melt glue and will fall out shortly.
(continued in next post)