Question: Best External DVD drive case?

[iamdmc]

I'm looking for a DVD drive case so I can use the bay for a second hard drive and I don't use the DVD drive that often.

I found this on eBay
http://cgi.ebay.com/EXTERNAL-CASE-FOR-T ... 5637e906b6

and I bought one like it (the one with the blue PCB) but it didn't work. It could have been a defective unit, though so I'm torn about buying another one. The one I have linked above has a green PCB and I'm wondering if it will work better. Anyone have any ideas and experience?

Thanks

[iamdmc]

Any help?

[ScotchDiver]

I've been waiting for someone to come out with this for years. To the best of my knowledge, this is your only option if you want to use an existing ultrabay drive.

I ordered one a couple days ago. I'll post back with my results.

[lexicon]

Ask them to send another pcb for free; I bought several units from that seller, and they sent replacement for non working PCB.

[ScotchDiver]

The external Ultrabay chassis I ordered from ebay earlier this month arrived last night. Shipping took about 2 weeks from China. I expect someone will eventually resell these locally, but for the time being, slow-boat delivery is your only option.

The unit works fine for me, but it's quite different from what I expected. My first surprise was that the chassis isn't a quick release design; you use 2 screws to hold the drive in place. Second, you have to remove a plastic nub on the back of your drive to make it fit. Third, there are no instructions of any sort to help you figure this out. At first I just thought it was the wrong size; no arrangement of parts would fit together in the case. Then I noticed a tiny screw on the plastic nub, removed it and the nub, and everything snapped into place.

A quick-release system would have been preferable, but this will work just fine for me. I've got a second hard drive installed in the ultrabay (SSD in the main bay) and I don't expect I'll ever swap in the DVD. I use a CD/DVD so rarely drive that connecting it via USB isn't a problem.

I used the drive, in the external chassis, to burn and install a Windows 7 DVD with no issues. The drive comes with a second USB power cable, which I used during the install test, but I ran a read test with just the one cable and that worked fine too. Overall, I'm quite happy with it.