sharing an idea for hotswap boot drives on older Supermicro 846 builds

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BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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I have a pair of Supermicro 846 servers I'm building up. These 846s can't accommodate the 2x 2.5" bays in the rear next to the PSU cage. There is however, an internal bracket that can accommodate a 3.5" HDD or with an additional bracket 2x 2.5" HDD/SSD. Although this works for mounting a pair of boot drive SSDs, should the mirror break, it's not ideal for hot swapping the drives.

So, instead, I found this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E1GNY52/

I know there are plenty of alternatives that are bit cheaper, but this was the only one I could find that has a metal eject lever, which I prefer over the ones with plastic levers that I fear will break at precisely the wrong time.

Anyway, i fitted this into the 3.5" HDD bracket as you can see in the pictures. I used a super thin adjustable wrench to hold some nuts to secure the screws through the bracket. only 2 of the holes line up, but it's secure enough to hold it in place without any play.

IMG_20180106_170422.jpg IMG_20180106_170440.jpg IMG_20180106_170621.jpg IMG_20180109_141932.jpg IMG_20180109_141945.jpg

It's not as nice as the dual 2.5" bays that go out the rear, but with this I can hot swap the boot drives by opening the lid. I also found this useful during testing, as I had several SSDs with different OSes installed and I could just swap it really quick an reboot into a different OS.
 

nk215

Active Member
Oct 6, 2015
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I mount a dual 3.5 drive bay right behind the fan wall, kind of overhang the CPU. Work out great.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
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Nice. I did something similar but more ghetto. I fixed the mobile rack using velcro.
 

i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
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If you have empty pci slots you could use pci adapters that can use 2.5" sata/sas drives.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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But those won't be powered by the slot will they? That would be great!
 

BLinux

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Jul 7, 2016
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If you have empty pci slots you could use pci adapters that can use 2.5" sata/sas drives.
yeah! I use to use those types of adapters like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...6268936&sr=8-3&keywords=PCI+slot+2.5"+adapter

particularly on older systems with legacy PCI slots that I have no use for, those were great! but I wouldn't sacrifice a modern PCI-E slot for it. for the expense of adapter+SSD+cables, I would just spend it on a LSI WarpDrive or Sun F40 for about the same cost.