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2 Setup
The ISWAP is pretty easy to install into any tower
system assuming you have three consecutive 5.25” drive bays free.
If you don’t have three bays free – well you’re out
of luck – maybe you should look into the two bay device instead
(in fact we have one to review and yoonman will be looking into that soon)
Let's take a quick look at the ISWAP from various
angles
Front
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 |
| Front of the carrier assembly |
Side/Front angle view |
Side
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| Side
of the case |
Back
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| Top rear of the case |
Rear of the case with the fan |
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 |
Side angle of the rear |
Other side showing IDE and Power |
Now let's take a peek at the inside of the ISWAP
- First the Drive Carrier. Taking the drive carrier out you'll see that
it is a simple system where you just slide your IDE drive into place,
connect it and screw it in. The fitting is tight so do be careful with
the IDE ribbon. Note that to take the drive out, all you need to do is
to tug at the blue lever. There is no key lock to prevent accidental hard
drive removal unfortunately.
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| Taking
the drive out |
Drive
Carrier |
Looking inside the housing assembly, you can see
the rail system that the case uses for the drive carriers and then you
can also see the drive interfaces in the rear. I took the rear panel off
to show what the rear PCB board looked like as well as the fan setup.
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| Inside the housing assembly |
Rear of the housing assembly |
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Rear fan connector |
Rear Fan |
To use the ISWAP, you first install the housing
assembly. After you’re done with the installation, you install your
hard drives and then connect the proper IDE cables and you’re off
and running. Note that you’ll still need to make sure your hard
drive settings are correct of course.
 For
our testing, I used a spare Enermax case that I had lying around and installed
the ISWAP. There was plenty of 5.25” drive bays to work with so
installing the housing assembly was a cinch. You’ll notice in the
pictures below that the housing assembly sticks out from the case a few
millimeters and not flush against the front of the PC case. I personally
think that it takes a little away from the case aesthetics with the housing
assembly protruding out. But hey – the ISWAP is about functionality
and less about form. Getting the assembly in place was just a matter of
screwing in the included screws.
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| Sliding the carrier into the front |
Another view |
To test out the drive carriers, I plugged in a Western
Digital IDE hard drive which has been the mobile rack guinea pig for the
past few months. Installation was smooth though the drive did have a very
snug fit into the carrier. I wish mobile rack makers would create drive
carriers that had a little more space to work with sometimes.
 |
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| Inserting the WD Drive int |
Drive in place in the carrier |
 |
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| Side angle of the carrier - notice
the thinness |
Sliding the drive carrier into the
housing assembly |
Once the drive was installed, it’s just a
matter of sliding the drive carrier into place and snapping the front
locking mechanism in. Once that’s done, you can connect your IDE
cables in the rear of the housing assembly and let er rip.
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The front face |
The rear of the assembly |
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