Housing with interchangeable sliding units that can carry arrays of different disc drives

摘要

A housing (113) contains circuitry for controlling signals with a plurality of disk drives (401, 1605) and has a plurality of mounting mechanisms supporting a sub-unit of a first or second type in a sliding manner. A sub-unit (1310, 1611), of a first type has a plurality of connectors (404) each connected to a disk drive (401) and a fan (601, 602) providing a flow of air for cooling the disk drives and the control circuitry and is connected to a first one of cables (412). A second type of sub-unit (1302, 1602) is connected to a second one of the cables (412) and has a fan (601, 602) providing a flow of air for cooling control circuitry therein. The second sub-unit 1302, 1602) is removable from the main housing (113) and replaceable by a unit of the first type. The different types can include data storage devices comprising disc drives of different form factor and of different interface type. Thus one type of sub-unit can house fast SAS drives on a SAS interface while a different type of sub-unit can house slower SATA drives on a SATA interface.