Final Touches on ATA: Hard-Drive Accessories Roundup

Maxtron Mobile Rack

Maxtron's Mobile Rack is a swap-rack system for UltraATA hard drives that has been trimmed down to its bare essentials, which can be bought at retail outlets. One of the defining characteristics of the Mobile Rack is that it is made completely out of plastic.

There are, as is usual for racks, two LEDs on the front of the rack: one that shows whether power is on or off and another that blinks to indicate hard-drive activity. Our model didn't come with any locking mechanism, which means that you could accidentally pull out an installed drive while it is still running - just one yank and out it comes!

The only advantage of the Mobile Rack is that it allows you to remove hard drives basically at will. Although it is built solidly enough, it has no lock-down mechanisms to speak of, nor does it permit you to add fans to the system.

You just place any ATA hard drive in the enclosure, hook it up and screw it in.

There's a robust connector between the rack in the computer and the plug-in module.

The left-hand LED acts as a power indicator, the right-hand one shows hard drive activity.