Who'd have thought? My Seagate drives have only 4 screw holes

[danb35]

"Oops, this doesn't fit. So, we're going to dremel the piezo speaker into oblivion."

That was the first series of his I watched, because I was looking at switching to pfSense at the time. And it was the last thing of his I watched as well, at least for the purpose of learning something.

 

[Z300M]

The ST6000DX000 drives I got a couple of years ago have just the four mounting holes as well. I think that's because the diameter of the platters is greater and there is no possibility of having a mounting hole in that intermediate location. Originally I mounted them with just two screws. Later versions of the iStarUSA drive trays had the extra holes, and I drilled extra holes in some of my old trays, so now all those 6TB drives are secured by four screws.

Correction/clarification: both the older and the newer drives had only four holes on the bottom, but one pair of holes is now in a different location on the ST6000DX000. The ST6000DX000 drives have only two holes on each side, unlike the older drives.

I have just ordered a 6TB HGST NAS drive to keep as a spare; it'll be interesting to see what mounting holes it has.

The HGST HDN726060ALE614 drive has six mounting holes on the bottom and three on each side. BTW, it seems noisy: a low-pitched rumbling sound during S.M.A.R.T. tests.

 

[Pewter Tankard]

OK... so I had a drive failure in my NAS inside the Fractal Design housing (old drive brackets) and bought an IronWolf replacement. Hmmm... so I can only hold it there using two of the screw holes... BUT, I also have a roll of velcro cable management strip... so I used the two other holes in the bracket where the IronWolf doesn't have screw holes to loop around the drive and to hold it tightly to the bracket. It feels a lot more solid that way than just being held by two screws.

This is the product, by the way: http://amzn.eu/0YcOWZK

Obviously, I'll post here if there are problems but it seems to be working well.

 

[Johnnyicemaker]

OK... so I had a drive failure in my NAS inside the Fractal Design housing (old drive brackets) and bought an IronWolf replacement. Hmmm... so I can only hold it there using two of the screw holes... BUT, I also have a roll of velcro cable management strip... so I used the two other holes in the bracket where the IronWolf doesn't have screw holes to loop around the drive and to hold it tightly to the bracket. It feels a lot more solid that way than just being held by two screws.

This is the product, by the way: http://amzn.eu/0YcOWZK

Obviously, I'll post here if there are problems but it seems to be working well.

I picked up 6 new HGST 8TB HDN728080ALE604. They have the same bottom hole configuration as the IronWolf (four extended bottom screw holes). I think most new NAS drives over 4TB in size have this new extended screw spacing.

I used a hybrid of your idea in my Node 304 Drive cages. I utilized the front two screw holes and then used plastic zip ties instead of velcro in the back holes. Slipped the zip tie through the vibration dampening screw hole grommets and around the hard dive. It is a really snug fit so I'm not too worried unless the plastic gets too hot and stretches. They are working fine so far. I have a message into Fractal-Design customer support to find out how to get replacement/upgrade hard drive cages, for the extended screw holes, but have at least figured out a work around for the time being.

Anybody know where/how to get the "newer" hard drive cages without having to buy an all new case?
http://www.fractal-design.com/media/8e32e77c-2d0a-40a7-b7c1-c24f7ea3d66f

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Anybody know where/how to get the "newer" hard drive cages without buying an all new case?

Not too long ago and for some time Fractal Design sold these Hard Drive Adapters instead of updated hard drive cages (usable in some other Fractal Design cases, too):

https://www.fractal-design-shop.de/navi.php?a=1116
Item number: SP-FD-HDDBRKT-001-WT

Currently the Fractal Design Shop / Spare Part Center states "Delivery Date unknown" for these Adapters. Actually I bought six of these kits five months ago for my Node 304 (old case version version with old hard drive cages).

AFAICT the newer hard drive cages were never available as replacement parts for the older version of the Node 304 case, which also makes some sense (look closely!). Missing notches in the old version of the Node 304 case would make it impossible to install 6 new HDDs even with all hard drive cages replaced by new ones, instead 4 new HDDs at most (omitting the outermost ones).

 

[Dunuin]

The same problem here with my Define R4 and the WD80EMAZ. They sell longer hdd adapter versions with an additional hole too.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Bump, just noticed this on an some older Seagate ST6000NM0024 drives.

I got an Evercool 5.25 to 3x 3.5 converter, put the drive in and, what the heck, I cant mount these in here....^%$^%$^%$

Who thought this was a good idea?

Well, guess I won't be getting 2 more IronWolf's for my NAS build...

Good Job Seagate (one person noted they are doing this to fit the additional platters in the enclosure...)