2. A look at the RH-600

Let's take a look at the RH-600. Every mobile rack is essentially made of two pieces: the outer piece is the receiving frame while the inner piece is the drive carrier. As you can see from the pictures that are shown here, the receiving frame is made of aluminum while the inner drive carrier is made of a combination of plastic and aluminum.

Top of the rack

Looking at the back of the receiving frame, you'll see the IDE interface and the power supply interface. Let's take a look at the drive carrier.

Back of the receiving frame

To remove the drive carrier, you need to make sure the drive is unlocked. Normally it should be unlocked from the package but you should probably check anyhow. Lian Li calls the Lock/Unlock as On/Off so check to make sure it's off.

Once that's done, all you have to do is to lift handle up and then out and voila! - the drive carrier is out. Look on the inside of the receiving frame and you'll see the interfaces that are set up to hook up to the drive carrier.

Removing the drive carrier

Back of the drive carrier	fits into the inside of the receiving frame

2.1 Inserting a hard drive

To insert a hard drive into the receiving frame, you'll need to remove the cover. In order to remove the cover, push out a clip that is inhibiting the cover from coming out. Just push the clip and then slide the cover off of the drive carrier.

Push out the clip	and slide out the top cover

Once removed, you'll see an IDE ribbon and a 4 pin power cable. Looking around at the inside of the drive carrier, you'll notice two small cooling fans cooling the drive. There's even a filter wedged in between the fans and the outer grill to remove any contaminants from the drive carrier. You can remove the filter easily and clean it out.

Inside the drive carrier	Back of the drive carrier
Front of the drive carrier	Filter in front of the fan

Top view of the front grill

Our testing for this rack involved using an IBM 20 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive. This was the only area of concern for me. The drive carrier provides a very tight fit for the IBM drive. Though I did not try other IDE 3.5" drives, I would imagine that the issue would be the same. You have to insert the drive with the IDE connection in first and then slide the rest of the drive into the body. There are power cables that connect to the fan that also need to be carefully pushed aside as you insert a hard drive. After a minute of fiddling around with the drive carrier, I was able to get the hard drive installed. Then all that was left was to screw in the included screws and we were off.

Connecting the hard drive	The hard drive's tight squeeze
Really tight	Did I say it was tight

The drive screwed into the frame

Closing up the top	and here's the drive carrier

2.2 Installing the receiving frame

The test subject for the RH-600 was my Enermax case which up until recently was my main multimedia box. I've since decided to convert that box into a test bed for all the different pieces of hardware and software we hope to go through here at WhiningDog. One of these days, I'll do a writeup on that case too.

The test victim - the Enermax case

Installing the frame is just like installing a hard drive or any 5.25" drive. Just find yourself an empty bay, slide it in, and screw it down. Done. Then connect the IDE ribbon and the power cable and all that's left is to slide the receiving frame in.

Install the receiving frame	It's nice and flush
Connect the cables	and screw it in

2.3 Putting everything together

Once the frame was set into place, I slid the drive carrier back into it and started up the system. Since I was rebuilding my box, this was a perfect time to see if everything would work as advertised. Sure enough it did.

Slide the drive carrier back in

When the system is powered, a cool blue light shines through the right hand side of the front face. A yellow light shines whenever the hard drive is accessed. You'll also notice an area above the yellow light that is reserved for the SCSI versions of this case. That area shows the SCSI ID indicator if this was a SCSI model. The locking mechanism works well enough. Rotate the key to the left and the drive locks into place. You won't have to worry about someone coming along and removing the drive by accident while your system is running.

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