Recent videos by Level 1 has reminded me that I need to fix my own home backup solution.
I currently use 2 10TB 3.5" HDD’s for my backup.
I have one onsite and one offsite. I swap them over roughly once a month or more frequently if I’ve created some critical data that I don’t want to risk losing.
I use a Vantec Ez Swap 2 which is great because it provides a removable enclosure for the drive itself. Thus the enclosure provides protection for the drive whilst it’s in transport.
Unfortunately the portion that lives in the 5.25" drive bay has failed, so I’m now on the hunt for a replacement product.
I’ve had a bit of a look around but all the products I can find now for removable 3.5" drives don’t really offer any protection for the drive once it’s out of the PC.
Anyone aware of a product I might have missed?
I did see something at one point in time that had a removable drive solution that really only had a front and two side rails for the drive, but then had a transport enclosure that would snugly fit that and the drive. Something along those lines would also be suitable.
When considering drive drawers you need to assess if you will mostly house drives temporarily in your drawer, of if you will house them more permanently.
in the first case, you will want to invest in tray-less designs, while in the latter case trays may be more acceptable.
Next you should consider how many drives you will want to be able to access at any time. Maybe you want to keep a stack of drives and only access 1 or 2 at a time - or you consider a flexible setup that allows exchange of many drives that are typically accessed together (e.g. in a raid setup). The answer to that will determine how many slots you should plan for.
Icydock has solutions for all the requirements indicated above.
I have been using multiple cages of this design for years:
I have multiple 5-in-3x 5.25" FatCages and supplemental 3-in-2 cages.
They are relatively speaking older designs, but they have been holding up well.
