PC chassis enthusiasts (yeah, there is such a thing) will surely know that
Thermaltake's V9 Black Edition has been out for a couple of years now, but there's evidently quite a bit of difference in the V9 BlacX Edition. Aside from that awkward letter change, of course. The otherwise ho hum mid-tower enclosure -- complete with a black outer shell, seven PCI expansion slots and a grand total of ten drive bays -- spruces things up by offering a pair of SATA HDD docks right on the front panel. Basically, the company took
one of these right here and smashed it into the front of its newest enclosure. With it, you'll able to shove any spare 2.5- or 3.5-inch SATA hard drive right into your system for quick access, all without needing an external peripheral to do it. In fact, we just made a promise to ourselves to never buy another case
without this kind of magnificent integration. Check it this August for $99.
posted June 20th 2010 1:41AM
Thats a genius idea to have your hard drives hanging out there asking to be accidentally smacked instead of just installing real hot swap bays.
I don't remember SATA being hot-swappable...
@chilicoke It's a part of the SATA specification. If you've set your BIOS to show SATA drives as they are and disable SATA>IDE Emulation (As you should), they are hot-swapable. It's why real swap bays are more important than the cheap gimmick added to this case.
yeah wtf, if this is for powerusers why doesn't the SATA Dock plug into that one interface thats really fast, oh SATA!
SATA, USB headers, and Molex is the only connectors that should be used when designing a PC case.