DISK DRIVE ENCLOSURE OPTIMIZED FOR MIXED SLIM AND HALF HIGH DRIVE SIZES

摘要

An enclosure (301) for disk drives into which mixed drive sizes, both "slim" and "halfhigh", can be inserted in almost any order. The preferred enclosure (301) includes at leastthirteen equi-spaced pairs of guide rails, wherein each pair of rails includes one rail (308)on one side panel (302) of the enclosure (301), and the other rail of the other side panel(303) of the enclosure (301). Each pair of guide rails defines a boundary of a "slot", suchthat twelve slots are defined between thirteen pairs of guide rails. Groups of slots aredefined, wherein each group includes six contiguous slots. For each group of six slots,four connectors (307) are included on a back panel (304) of the enclosure (301). Aremovable back panel "shuttle" (304) is included, which can be replaced with a differentshuttle to easily and inexpensively convert the enclosure (301) to receive a different type ofdisk drive.FIG 3