In times past, the good old 3.5" floppy drive was a every day occurrence in most Desktop PC's.
Even now, I still use them in cases where RAID drivers need to be loaded from a 3.5" floppy during OS installations (Older OS's).
Not too many users have a need for them now but many PC cases still come with a 3.5" bay built into the case. It just sits there with a blank face plate doing nothing?
I decided to try and find something a little different yet genuinely useful to fill that empty 3.5" bay.
Here's what I got,
It's called a USB 2.0 Data Dock & it has some nice little treats combined.
The USB 2.0 Data Dock is a very compact unit that allows you to add a built-in USB hub, memory card reader and 2.5" hard drive to your desktop computer.
The Data Dock consists of the dock itself, which fits into a standard 3.5" expansion bay, and 3 data trays: USB Hub, Card Reader and Drive Housing. The trays simply slide into the Data Dock and connect via an internal USB 2.0 interface. Each tray can also be used 'stand alone' connected to an external USB 2.0 port by pressing the eject button for that particular tray & connecting it directly to any computer via a USB cable.
* Installs into a standard 3.5" floppy drive bay and connects to the motherboard's USB connection
* USB 2.0 interface, backwards compatible with USB 1.1
* Supplied with 3 mobile data trays:
o 2.5" IDE HDD Enclosure (actual hard drive not included)
o 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub
o Multi-format Card Reader
* Two data trays can be used in the Data Dock at one time, each tray can also be connected directly to a USB port externally via a USB cable.
* Compatible with Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7 and Mac OS 9.0 & above
There is also an optional extra SATA HDD try available which can be purchased separately.
I like the idea of the multiple usage of a normally unused bay & the whole thing is so mobile too. You can simply press the eject button to remove any try and bring it with you. It can be connected to any computer via a USB cable once removed from the dock.
The Dock Unit and trays are available in three colours, Black, Sliver & Beige.
The product is available from a company called Lindy & you can see how useful it can be from the picture below.
A USB Dual Power Cable is included for powering the data trays when connected to an external USB port.
Link:
Have you come across anything unusual that can fill that unused 3.5" bay?
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Even now, I still use them in cases where RAID drivers need to be loaded from a 3.5" floppy during OS installations (Older OS's).
Not too many users have a need for them now but many PC cases still come with a 3.5" bay built into the case. It just sits there with a blank face plate doing nothing?
I decided to try and find something a little different yet genuinely useful to fill that empty 3.5" bay.
Here's what I got,
It's called a USB 2.0 Data Dock & it has some nice little treats combined.
The USB 2.0 Data Dock is a very compact unit that allows you to add a built-in USB hub, memory card reader and 2.5" hard drive to your desktop computer.
The Data Dock consists of the dock itself, which fits into a standard 3.5" expansion bay, and 3 data trays: USB Hub, Card Reader and Drive Housing. The trays simply slide into the Data Dock and connect via an internal USB 2.0 interface. Each tray can also be used 'stand alone' connected to an external USB 2.0 port by pressing the eject button for that particular tray & connecting it directly to any computer via a USB cable.
* Installs into a standard 3.5" floppy drive bay and connects to the motherboard's USB connection
* USB 2.0 interface, backwards compatible with USB 1.1
* Supplied with 3 mobile data trays:
o 2.5" IDE HDD Enclosure (actual hard drive not included)
o 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub
o Multi-format Card Reader
* Two data trays can be used in the Data Dock at one time, each tray can also be connected directly to a USB port externally via a USB cable.
* Compatible with Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7 and Mac OS 9.0 & above
There is also an optional extra SATA HDD try available which can be purchased separately.
I like the idea of the multiple usage of a normally unused bay & the whole thing is so mobile too. You can simply press the eject button to remove any try and bring it with you. It can be connected to any computer via a USB cable once removed from the dock.
The Dock Unit and trays are available in three colours, Black, Sliver & Beige.
The product is available from a company called Lindy & you can see how useful it can be from the picture below.
A USB Dual Power Cable is included for powering the data trays when connected to an external USB port.
Link:
Have you come across anything unusual that can fill that unused 3.5" bay?
-
