3.5 Bay Front Sata Port w/4 Pin Molex

Discount Price: $4.95

Customer Reviews:

Great idea, horrible implementation [Posted on 2007-05-06]
This item appeared to be exactly what I needed for my PC. As a full time web developer, I end up doing a lot of work on my own several PCs and those of family and close friends. I don't do PC hardware work full time so I don't have a permanent shop or bench set up. I thought the front panel connectors for hard drives would be much easier than my current method of plugging drives into external USB cases for testing or data recovery.

I was very disappointed in this item, also known as OK307 from OKGear. The front face of the panel does not fit a standard 3.5 inch drive slot. It is too large by about 3/32 of an inch all around. The mounting screw holes on the side do not fit as well. The hole pattern matches the rear two holes (out of three) on a standard 3.5 inch drive slot. Using those screws would leave the front of the panel about 3 inches inside your case rather than even with the front of the case. The only other option is to use the rear screw hole only on the OK307 to the second from the rear hole on the 3.5 inch drive slot. This has two problems. First, by only using one screw hole on each side, the panel rocks up and down significantly. Second, the front of the panel is now about 1/2 inch inside the case rather than lined up with the front of the case. This is better than being sunken into the case by 3 inches but it is still very unsatisfactory. I purchased OK307 and OK306 (Molex and IDE) panels. This mounting problem applies to both and appears to apply to all of the similar series of panels from OKGear.

The final problem with this item is that the cables included are much too short. While the 4-pin Molex power connector is short, most PCs have spare connectors that will reach to that cable. The SATA data cable, on the other hand, which is 12 inches long (30cm), is too short to reach virtually any motherboard's SATA connectors. If the panel had a male SATA connector, you could use your own SATA cable to complete the connection to your motherboard but it has a female connector. You will have to buy a hard-to-find, expensive, and questionably-reliable male-to-famale SATA extension cable.

It is really too bad that the product does not work for its intended purpose. I could really use a front panel SATA, Molex power, and IDE connector solution.

Click here for more details and discount information...