AST 202461-005C SCSI Hot Swap Drive Tray Caddy w/ Backplane Board & Cables

AST 202461-005C SCSI Hot Swap Drive Tray Caddy w/ Backplane Board & Cables

The AST 202461-005C is a SCSI hot swap drive tray caddy designed for use in AST server systems equipped with hot swap drive bays. The caddy consists of a sheet-metal carrier frame that holds a 3.5" hard drive and interfaces with the server's hot swap backplane via the integrated backplane PCB mounted at the rear of the tray. A ribbon cable and power connector cable are attached to route signals and power between the installed drive and the host system.

Specifications & What's Included

• Part Number: 202461-005C
• Brand: AST
• Interface: SCSI
• Type: Hot Swap Drive Tray / Caddy
• Drive Form Factor Supported: 3.5"
• Integrated backplane PCB (green, mounted at rear of carrier)
• Ribbon cable with keyed gray connector (for SCSI signal)
• Power connector cable (4-pin style lead)
• Metal carrier frame with slide rails and thumbscrew retention hardware

Applications

Hot swap drive trays like this AST 202461-005C were used in mid-1990s rack-mounted and tower server systems to allow hard drives to be swapped out without powering down the server — a critical capability for high-availability environments such as file servers, departmental servers, and storage arrays. AST Research was a major PC and server manufacturer of the late 1980s through mid-1990s, producing systems popular in corporate and government settings. Hot swap caddies are specific to the server model they were designed for; this tray is compatible with AST server chassis that accept this bay and backplane design. Today these trays are sought by administrators maintaining legacy AST server hardware, or for salvage and parts use.