XT-XINTE 2x 5.25 to 3x 3.5 Bay Review

badi95 · December 9, 2020, 4:31am

I recently picked up a XT-XINTE 3-Bay Large Capacity HDD Hard Drive Cage Rack from XT-XINTE 3-Bay Large Capacity HDD Hard Drive Cage Rack SAS SATA Hard Drive Disk Tray Caddy w SATA Cable for Computer Accessories
I got the option with no fan or cables. Ordered on 11/25 got received it on 12/7. Not too bad for shipping from China.
Installed it in my Dell PowerEdge T110ii. I was only able to fit it into my 2x 5.25 bay if I only had one set of screws installed. It didn’t align right and wouldn’t fit with both sets of screws to fit the bay into the case. Came with 6 rails. The rails fit into my HGST SAS drives, and the drives slid in solidly. I only have drives in slots 1 and 3, since I only have 2 drives, but it seems like it should fit a 3rd drive fine. I plan to get a fan to add to the front. Seems like it should fit an 80mm fan, but can’t say for sure until I get one, screw holes for the fan are about 70mm x 70mm apart. The front grate holes are a little big, but it’s not too bad.
The other bay I was considering was the EverCool Dual 5.25 in. Drive Bay to Triple 3.5 in. HDD Cooling Box Amazon.com but I prefer the rail mounting system on the XT-XINTE, and it was cheaper.

Here are a couple of pictures. If you have any questions or want more pictures, let me know in the comments and I’ll do what I can. I’ll post an update when I install a fan.

KingGGs · December 9, 2020, 5:07am

nice fit and also a good and cheap price

badi95 · December 9, 2020, 5:10am

Unfortunately the shipping was $13. So I think total I ended up paying $20.04. Still cheaper than anything else I could find.

badi95 · January 23, 2021, 9:39pm

Bit of an update. I just added an 80mm fan to the front and it fit the screw holes perfectly. To get the fan cable out the back of the cage I had to remove 7 screws (3 side, 2 back, 2 top) and pull the side to make the opening big enough to run the fan power cable through the cage and out the back. It was a little annoying, but not too challenging. Unfortunately my fan cable is too short and my mobo uses a non-standard fan connector, so I’m not able to run the fan just yet. I’ll report back once I get it up and running. Sorry for no pictures.

badi95 · January 26, 2021, 5:39am

Added the front fan and things are significantly cooler. Like 10 degrees. When there are 3 drives in the cage there isn’t much room between drives and they’ll heat up pretty quick. The fan really helps to keep cool air moving over the drives.

JDM_WAAAT · January 26, 2021, 4:23pm

But what were the before/after temps?

badi95 · January 26, 2021, 5:23pm

Went from around 53 to 50 when just sitting around not doing anything for the hottest disk. Bigger impact was seen when doing a parity check. During parity check the hottest disk would get over 60, last night when I ran parity check it didn’t go over 55. That made the whole effort worthwhile.
I didn’t include all the headache with the non-standard fan connector on my Dell mobo.