The Silverstone SDP09 adapter is very impressive at first glance. The cage is made from thick 0.33″ SECC steel, so it is built like a tank and very solid. The steel is coated with a shiny nickel plating, which matches many other enthusiast products, such as Zalman CPU and VGA heatsinks. On the downside, this nickel plating picks up fingerprints readily. The adapter has two sets of external mounting screw holes (left and right, and bottom of the drive), with the same spacing and threading as standard hard drives. The SATA data and power ports are placed in the exact same place as a standard hard drive, as well.
The inside of the adapter is shaped to accomodate 2.5″ devices. There are four screw holes that allow tiny drives to be secured, and a longer screwdriver (preferrably with a magnetized head) is needed to reach them. The inside of the bay also has two high-density foam pieces to keep the drive stationary. The circuit board appears to be a simple pass-through device, with data traces drawn to ensure signal synchronization.
Installing a 2.5″ device is easy. Just slide it in and mount with screws
Installing a drive is rather simple. Just plop a 2.5″ drive down and slide it into the female port of the adapter. Because the internal screw holes are slightly hidden, securing these internal screws can be a little frustrating to get the screw alignment right. Once this is done, you can mount the device into any standard drive bay or hot-swappable tray. The Lian Li PC-A7110 requires drives to have a customized aluminum pull bar with stand-off screws, which worked just fine with this adapter. The device mounted just fine in many other cases and server hot-swap trays, as well.
Adapter with Lian Li PC-A7110 mounting accessories attached
Performance was not degraded in the slightest. These bays were used to mount two Corsair Force F40 SSD drives (reviewed here) in a RAID 0 configuration, and throughput was exactly the same as with the bare drives, which exceeded 530 megabytes per second.
A Pair of Corsair Force SSDs in RAID 0 yield incredible transfer rates
There are a few other SSD adapters out there, but they are either just a metal housing and/or use cheap loose cables and power adapters. The Silverstone SDP09 is a solid integrated solution with no loose parts or wires that can snag or get in the way.
The adapter performs great, but honestly so do the adapters that come with many SSD devices. People who need this adapter are those who need absolute compatibility with standard 3.5″ drive bays, including hot-swappable drive trays, and PC enthusiasts who just can’t resist shiny nickel plating. The adapter is made from very thick steel, and will absolutely last a lifetime. If you dig the looks and the quality, then the device is worth the $15.
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
