Syba 2.5″ HDD Enclosure for PCI Slot

As PC’s become commonplace in all areas of the home, people are looking for smaller and less obvious cases. For many people, their living room features a PC in it that serves up music and movies and delivers various media streams. While such PC’s have their place, the chances of a full-size case sitting in or beside the entertainment center are less and less likely. HTPC (Home Theatre PC) setups are becoming more and more commonplace. The available space in these cases is tight at best.

Today I am reviewing the SYBA SY-MRA25018 Mobile Rack, which enables the use of a spare PCI slot to hold a 2.5” HDD. This unit is also hot-swap capable and comes in at under $20 in price.

I frequently skip to the end of a given review, in order to read the pro’s and con’s before I actually read the entire article. Hence,  I am going to change the structure of this article a little.

Package contents:

• Drive Enclosure
• 1 6/32 screw
• HDD pin protector
• Standard (non-locking) SATA cable, in the typical red color. Approximately 18” in length
• 4 pin molex to SATA adapter with additional LED power connection, which plugs into the rear of the enclosure
• HDD protective film (one time use)
• Documentation in English (and what appears to be Chinese)

Pro’s and Con’s

The screwless drive holder is a plus: the drive is held in place by friction and sheer force of will. The only time you will need a screwdriver is to screw down the enclosure in the PCI slot. The overall build quality is high. However, ejecting the drive requires considerable force. After playing with it, testing it and using it in a case, I am still concerned that I will break the mechanism when I am removing a drive. When you eject a drive it does not fully come out. In testing I found that there were burrs on some areas which prevented the drive from being removed easily. Also, to eject a drive requires you to have enough space at the rear of the case to remove the drive plus a bit extra (roughly 4.5” space).

Airflow is a big issue and raises a question. If you stack a few of these side by side, you will absolutely require directed airflow if standard 2.5” drives are used. SSDs do not produce much, if any, additional thermal load so this might not be an issue in all instances. While the unit is powder coated, I am a little concerned about the base of the unit: it covers a spare PCIe slot for stability. The issue with this is the construction is metal so there is a chance it may contact something it shouldn’t and ground out. Many manufacturers are using every available space for capacitors, MOSFETs, and additional components so space is always tight.

The “hotswap” ability is useful for some users but it’s need is questionable. The likelihood that the majority of users will be swapping drives in and out is slim. Also, it is placed rather inconveniently on the back of the computer which can be out of reach and crowded with cables (i.e. monitors, mice, keyboards, speakers, etc.).

As for the blue LED: sorry, personal gripe but I am tired of blue LEDs in everything.

Overall opinion

Even with the con’s that I have listed, I am honestly impressed with this and intend to pick up a few of these to use in my firewall, HTPC, and file server. Given a bit of refinement, this has the capability to be a very useful product. This enclosure definitely has a niche for use in the expanding use of smaller enclosures around the house.

-Adragontattoo