Kingwin KF-252 Internal SATA HDD Rack

Manufacturer: Kingwin
Supplied by: Kingwin
Street Price: $15

by Dean Barker  (3/20/2011)

Introduction

Kingwin has released an internally mounted drive rack bringing hot swap capability to your SATA HDDs.  Whether we're talking about 2.5" or 3.5" SATA hard drives, Kingwin has you covered.  Portable racks are much more versatile but I have found myself on more than one occasion being very jealous of desk space.  Having a rack mounted on my main rig opens space up on my desk making me feel and be more efficient.  Let's have a look at the Kingwin KF-252 unit.

Features

• Application: SATA HDD Rack
• Fits internally in open 5.25" drive bay
• For use with 2.5" and 3.5" SATA Hard Drives devices
• Tool-less drive installation
• Supports all SATA standards
• Transfer Rate: Up to 3.0GB/sec
• Supported OS: Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, 98SE and Mac OS 10X+
• Hot plug and play
• Dimensions: 110 x 146 x 41mm
• Weight: 180gms

What you get 

The Kingwin KF-252 comes with a very Spartan bundle.  But then again, it's a drive rack, why tack extras onto the price?  Included with the Kingwin KF-252 is a SATA cable, mounting screws and a manual.

The Unit

The KF-252 comes in all black sized as you'd expect for any 5.25" device.  Looking at the front of the unit we see a power button on the left of the drive tray.  As we said, the Kingwin KF-252 accepts both 2.5" and 3.5" SATA hard drives.  Larger drives simply push the spring tensioned door up and out of the way for installation.

The reverse side of the unit sports a Molex and SATA power port as well as a SATA data port.  The small 40mm circle on the right is deceptive.  At first glance I assumed it to be a 40mm cooling fan.  It is not.  It is simply a vent area.  However there is space between the rear wall of the unit and the drive area that would allow for you to mount a fan there if you'd like.  It seems pretty clear to me that Kingwin originally designed the unit to come with a fan but based on lack of need and additional cost to the unit's base price decided against it.  At no time did we find our drive remotely come to a point of getting too hot.

Holding the flap up for a peek inside we see our SATA ports and the air vent.

Here a shot of the Kingwin KF-252 mounted in a Zalman GT-1000 case.  Installing a drive was without issue.  With the drive fully inserted in the bay you have 2.25" of the drive exposed as you can see below.

  

Operation/Conclusion

Installation and operation was as straight forward as installing a new burner.  The clean lines make for a welcome way to save some desk space while enjoying the versatility of having large amounts of portable data.  Build quality was high as we've come to expect from Kingwin.  The very competitive price we found when doing some Google searches made this product an even bigger winner.  If you're looking for an internal drive rack, this is the one.  A few of the online retailers carrying it are MWave and AxionTech.

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