RAW Drive Caddy

If you're anything like me, you keep raw hard drives around, connect and disconnect them when you need them. It all seems innocent until an adjacent drive bangs on the PCB on another drive and that's it for the drive, unless an ESD incident occurs first.

So, here is a quick and easy RAW drive caddy. Just to set your expectations, this is not a case or adapter of any kind. It is just a plate that covers the underside of the drive to protect the drive electronics as well as your nice table top.

The part I made here is basic white PLA, with about 2mm of TPU. But after the part came off the printer and installed on a drive, I think it is best to start the print with carbon fiber PLA to give it more stiffness, then finish off with TPU.

I printed mine with 4 shells, 2 layers top/bottom and 25% infill. The infill may be a bit overkill but I was going to stiffness, which it is not, but using CF PLA will fix that and I can probably reduce my infill. I'll be printing about 5 more of these anyway. I printed mine at 0.25mm resolution, which is fine for this part. The layer lines look nice on a part like this anyway.

I have a Makerbot 5th Generation, which is an EXPENSIVE BASIC printer, I have to change filament part way through the print. It may be best to print your base filament and change to TPU at 60-75% completion. I don't see any issues with printing completely in one filament, but it seems nicer to have a rubbery bottom surface.

Screws used are 6-32 screws. The best to use are 6-32 computer screws, but this caddy was designed with standard socket head screws in mind.

Now you can almost throw your drives around with LESS fear of damaging them. The original idea was to design a "pan", but then the width of the bottom would be at least 1-2mm larger, plus the screw heads would make the entire thing bulky.

***** Update 2016-12-15 *****
I've uploaded a low profile version of the caddy for those who have low profile 6-32 computer screws. This version probably won't work if you are printing with standard PLA. I'm printing these with Carbon Fiber PLA, which is much stiffer than standard PLA