Shuttle -- What are you using your 3.5 bay for?

[prometheus_bound]

I'm a bit curious what everyone is using their 3.5 bay for on a shuttle cube (or similar). I suppose that some may actually have a floppy in there, but for those that don't...


My SS51 has the bay empty with an aluminum dual-temp LCD display.
Both of my sv24's have the bay empty with the included front cover.

Has anyone put in a fan in there? (similar to a 5.25 hard drive cooler)

[Dissonance]

I've got mine sitting wide open, though ideally I'd like to get some kind of fan or duct work going to better cool the hard drive circulate air. Unfortunately, I haven't seen fans small enough to fit, and the limited internal space lead me to believe that a blower wouldnt' work, either.

[farfolen]

SS40
Combo drive
I love my little box.

[HowardDrake]

Won't have mine until next month, but that's an easy question. One of those multi-media readers for my digital goodies. One with all the options. Perfect for a multimeida PC

[prometheus_bound]

HowardDrake, did you find an aluminum/silver one? I'm thinking of swapping mine out for one of those, or similar.

The LCD thermometer I have is at http://www.lian-li.com/product.php?acti ... &prdid=798

They also have a port bay that would have been great three years ago, with ports for MOUSE, USB 1.1, IEEE 1394, GAME PORT, SPEAKER, LINE IN, and MIC IN. Most of this is already on the front of a Shuttle.

There is a lot of neat stuff to be found in the 5.25, like the speaker/USB combo at http://www.cmicomputer.com/cgi-bin/quik ... duct=spusb, but noticeably absent from the 3.5 arena. I know it's a smaller bay, but do we not live in an age of miniturization?

[HowardDrake]

For the record I did see a couple of silver readers at Comdex, so they should be filtering to the dealers RSN.

[kurisu]

I'd also like a 3.5" intake, maybe something like a PCI exhaust (7th down), only in the other direction. Obviously it wouldn't keep both devices cool, but at least it would fit...

[ssand]

How about a couple of 40mm fans - It would have to be a custom mod. Only thing I would worried about is adding the noise factor to it.
http://phamcomputer.safeshopper.com/73/654.htm?26

Actually 40mm fan would be way too big. How about a couple 25mm??
http://www.eagletechcomputers.com/20lapcoolfan.html
I'm sure there are cheaper ones.

[jmgords613]

Hey guys, here is a great 3.5" Temp Display/Fan control from Enermax:

(black)

(silver)

http://www.enermax.com.tw/uc-a3fatr2.htm

It comes in either silver, black, or beige (eww).
I just ordered the silver one from an online retailer to match my Shuttle SB51G!

You can connect two three pin fans and two temp wires. I got it for around $25 shipped!!

The best part is that the lcd has two blue LED's that will match the power light!
**The enermax web server seems to be down now, but just search for the model number for hundreds of online retailers**
-- Jason

[jcostello]

So far, I'm using it for a 3.5" Floppy drive. I need the floppy drive for homework.

[mstrmold]

Or you could just buy an external USB floppy drive. That way you only use it for when you have to transfer files for school and thus giving yourself the ability to add a nice memory reader or temp gauge

-E

[frak_uk]

Gotta Maxtor 120GB SATA drive in the internal 3.5 bay, 160GB in the other 3.5 bay and a Pioneer 105 DVD writer in the 5.25.

[newbie_of_jan0502]

I found a heat sink off a pair of high current SCR's at work that fit perfectly on top of my HD. So I have the bay above it open and cool air gets sucked across the heat sink.

[PRIME1]

There is a nice 6-in-1 memory card reader that will fit in the slot.

[HowardDrake]

I'm getting another cube, a SK41G and I plan to stick a memory reader in that as well. Trouble is there aren't a lot of choices for that slot. Memory card reader is perfect, ports would be good except for the fact that the cubes have them all already Fan controller is almost useless with only 1 fan in there unless you mod, and what else?

[mstrmold]

Don't buy the Enermax Thermo unit. They have the built in alarm set to go off if anything hits 113F! That is my normal temp while folding on an XP3200+ processor. The damn thing goes off all the time. Resetting it to go off at 122F is fine, but when you power down your box, it resets back to the defaults!

Just say no to the UC-A3FATR2 unit. I think I'm going to clip the speaker off this weekend.

-E

[JavaMoose]

I really like all the options Addonics has for the 3.5in bay. Good company, great user-oriented attitude, and nice product.

IDE Digidrive - Multi-Format Flash Reader/Writer
Read and write to CF-I, CF-II, Smart Media™, Memory Stick™, Micro Drive™, Multimedia Card™, Secure Digital Card™ .
Works under DOS 6.22, Windows 95, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP and NT4.0 http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ide_digidrive.asp

Pocket ExDrive - External USB2/PCMCIA/FireWire Drive
Turn any 2.5 hard drive into external hard drive or removable hard drive in three easy steps.
Connect to your Desktop or Notebook computer via either USB, USB 2.0, PCMCIA, Firewire port or any new IO interface standard
Powered from your Notebook PC (through the PCMCIA Slot, USB port, PSII Port or Firewire port*),
Use as a removable Hard Drive on Desktops PC with an optional IDE drive cradle.
http://www.addonics.com/products/extern ... xdrive.asp

The ExDrive is cool, I mean, a removeable HD with a 3.5in bay drive-cradle! Very neat product...