SilverStone Puts HDDs Inside 5.25-inch Bays, Hot Swap Included

Coming to give some purpose to the many large, externally visible drive bays that every desktop enclosure is built with, SilverStone has created a certain product that will let HDDs be made hot-swappable.

Ever desktop PC has one or more 5.25-inch drive bays but, obviously, one will not actually have five DVD or Blu-ray drives in their configurations.

Granted, some high-end systems have a fan controller or some other accessory placed there, but the drive bays still mostly go by unused more often than not.

Fortunately, there are companies that like to go ahead and experiment with possible uses, the same way the versatility of other things is explored, like that of USB, peripherals, etc.

In this particular instance, SilverStone is taking its spot on the stage, or so a recent report seems to suggest.

In trying to solve the dilemma of unused optical disk drive bays, the company created something that will allow the space to be used by hard disk drives instead.

More specifically, SilverStone created an adapter, a bracket of sorts, which will house one platter spinner of 3.5 inches.

Built out of 0.8mm SECC, it can mount whatever HDD one chooses without any need for tools and can be stacked easily, should one wish to take advantage of more than one empty 5.25-inch compartment.

Sales are scheduled to commence on August 16, 2011 (next week as it were). The price will be of 19 Euro and will account for the removable dust filter and the hot swap capabilities (HDDs will be possible to remove or connect without having to reboot the system).

The name of the product is FP57. All that remains is to see how many prospective buyers eventually give in to its lure.

As for wanting to check out others of the company's unusual inventions, a certain fanless power supply probably qualifies.