KINGWIN KF-1000-BK 3.5" Internal hot swap rack

Comment:
This is a fairly cool piece of hardware. It looks flimsy in the photos, but it's sturdy as soon as totally installed. I purchased 1 just to attempt it out, and am most likely going to get a couple a lot more. The fact that you don't have to attach something to the drive it extremely cool, unless you're going to be swapping a lot of drives in and out. This will work fine if your case adheres to market standards. If you have a case with little rails or other devices to make it less difficult to remove drives, it could not work.

Comment:
Drives slide in smoothly, and connect with out wiggle. It's straightforward to connect, and works through a IDE sata expander card. No on/off switch other than opening the door, so if there's a drive in there, it is active. This can be a difficulty if you forget and stick in a drive that used to be a boot drive, then restart. It gave me a fright! It feels solid. I was skeptical of 'slide in and connect' for a tough drive, but it feels reliable. It's not a solid unit, so there is airflow around the drive. For the cash? This items a total win.

Comment:
Excellent price and very well-built. It is also identical to the unit that is Startech branded -- they're probably made by the same manufacturer! The racks stand up to repeated use/abuse and have yet to fail. The rubber rings also reduce vibration.

Comment:
This thing works great. Popped a velociraptor in there took me under 5 mins. Easy to work with. Purchased for work, the lock works. I think I may even purchase some for myself!

Comment:
This is a very cool idea for those looking to swap HDs frequently. This is the fastest and easiest way I know of. However, I put this in an HP pavillion case with proprietary cage and face plate. Needless to say, this defeats the purpose of fastest and easiest replacement. DO NOT BUY this for such a case. If I need to replace the HD, I have to remove the side cover and face plate to have access to the rack.However, if you have a standard case and you need something like this, its very good.

Comment:
I bought one of these because I got tired of taking apart my removable drive and swapping the drives. So now I have 2 of these in my system and 1 in every other system in the house.Great product! Especially for the price.

Comment:
Picked up several for all of my PCs - very easy to share data drives without the hassle of external enclosures or network drives. Has the status light connector which some other similar hot-swaps do not have. Can even configure as the boot drive - to make swapping out functionality of a PC simpler for my daughters. Just beware that these are not truly hot-swap unless your motherboard chipset supports it - otherwise you have to wait until the system is powered down before inserting/removing a drive.

Comment:
First unit like this i have tried, so will need more time to test, but so far so good. Depending on your mobo you will be able to or not able to hot swap. Fingers crossed you can.

Comment:
One thing important to know Sata/eSata HOT-SWAP DOESN'T work with Intel chipset. You need a motherboard with a JMicron controller for example...With a Intel controller, you have to reboot so the BIOS can detect the hard drive and then Windows can see it.

Comment:
Excellent product. I have a P5K-Premium motherboard and I have used up all 6 SATA connectors for 3 sets of RAID0. So with this great product I can use the eSATA port and use a eSATA-to-SATA cable (purchased separately from NCIX) to route from the back panel back into the case to use this enclosure.There is no "Safely Remove Hardware" icon available provided by the jMicron controller from the MB so make sure the drive is inactive before you dismount. Also, when you mount the drive, if for whatever reason your drive does not show up, go to Device Manager and click on your computer name, then click on "Scan For Hardware Changes" (right under Help, it will show up then. Also, if you want to use this for hot-swap, make sure to set the SATA port to connect to this as AHCI.

Comment:
I have been using this for 2 days I installed it as soon as I got it. Before I was using KF-91-BK sata mobile racks, but this was a little cheaper and I am always excited about trying new products. Installation was really easy, as is the swapping of drives. I couldn't get hot swapable to work, but I am still trying. Very good product I wouldn't say it's better than the four KF-91-BK units I've had for years, but I wouldn't say it's any worse either.

Comment:
I have been using this for 2 months. The install of this rack is really easy. Great design and very easy access. The only bad thing is the hotswap doesn't work with my motherboard (although it should support). But overall, this is a very good product