Custom SSD Dock Build (Success! sorta)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have the four data backup SSDs for my laptop (my current daily driver) installed in enclosures that are kept in a bracket so, when I need to update the backups, all I have to do is plop the assembly on my desk alongside the laptop, then connect the cables to the four USB ports on the left side of the laptop. I do the same with the four desktop data SSDs. While the set up works well, it ties up those four USB ports while the update software runs. It also eats a bit more space on my desk than I care for.

The backup drives for the desktop drives are bare drives. To be able to update them, I have to put a group of four into enclosures I'm using as SATA to USB cables since I can't find any cables that will support TRIM. Again, it works well but also eats up space on my desk, ties up the four USB ports, and is a PIMAA (Pain In My Ample Asset) to set up and tear down.

I've been searching for quite some time to find a buss powered dock that will take four 2.5" SSDs but all I've been able to find are ones that also take 3.5" HDDs. Besides being just too darned big, those docks all have to be powered (meaning another cable to horse around with) and I didn't know if they would support TRIM or not. Born of frustration, an idea for making a dock began to form in one of my three remaining brain cells (the other two aren't particularly bright).

One of the USB ports on the left side of my laptop is actually a Blunderbolt...er...Thunderbolt 3 port that does double duty as a USB3.1 Gen 2 port that allegedly supports up to 10Gbps. Although I can set up my current setup to simultaneously update all four drives, it usually takes longer to set up the software (open up four instances of FreeFileSync) than to just set up all four drives to run from one instance of FreeFileSync, updating only one drive at a time. Also, two of the four data drives in my computer are now considered to be full (91%) and will be read only so I can get by just fine with 10Gbps if I should decide to update the remaining two drives simultaneously (5Gbps bandwidth for each drive).

First, I was going to need a hub to connect the drives through. I found a Thunderbolt hub that had four USB C ports along one side that could handle up to 10Gbps (or was it 20Gbps; I don't remember but either would have been more than fast enough) but it also sent a charging current to the Thunderbolt port it gets connected to. My laptop's Thunderbolt port doesn't support charging (hence one reason for my "affectionate" nickname of Blunderbolt). I had a USB port on a Lenovo get fried by a faulty powered hub that sent current into that port so I was worried as a squirrel in a treeless dog park that the same could happen to the Blunderbolt port on my laptop. I contacted System 76 and they didn't think it would be a problem but they would cover any damage under warranty. Adding to my concern, the dock was fairly large, required a PSU (meaning more cables to horse around with), and some reviewers reported it ran hot so I decided to give that one a pass (it also was pretty expensive).

I did find a USB dock that had two type C ports and two type A ports that looked like it would do.

I also was going to need something to plug the bare backup SSDs into that will allow them to be connected via USB. I decided to cut down the same kind of enclosures I have been using so, along with the dock and some connectors, ordered four of them from Amazon.

This is what one first sees when the box is opened.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Hidden underneath are other goodies; two USB cables and a piece of foam.

Rant Alert! I wish manufacturers wouldn't include cables with their products. While most people prefer having cables included, it's been my experience that they are always too long, too short, or the wrong type for my needs (fussy, aren't I). I have a large box full of cables that were too long, too short, or the wrong type. I dig through that box before buying new cables but I rarely am able to use any of them.

Edit: I also feel the same about devices that have a cable attached. Invariably, the cables are too long, too short, and/or have the wrong connector on the end. I wish manufacturers would put a socket in their devices instead of a cable. Then I could pick the exact cable I need. At least, Cable Matters got it right on these enclosures by using a USB C port instead of an attached cable like the one on the above hub (which is two inches too short, btw).

OK, rant over. That piece of foam sticks onto the inside of the case cover to keep the drive from rattling around inside.

This view shows the enclosure opened up.

Here, you can see the connector inside enclosure that the drive plugs into.

This is is the key to connecting the drive to the hub but a little bit of surgery will be needed first.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Before doing surgery on the enclosures, I cut a roughly 45° bevel on one edge of the foam (sorry for the "lovely" photo; a photographer I "ain't') to make inserting an SSD into the enclosure post surgery less likely to tear the foam. That will be clearer later.

On to the operating room. Or, in this case, my little bandsaw. First, and I'll spare you the details, I needed to change the blade (a chore I hate because it's such a PIMAA), then set the fence up (another PIMAA since it doesn't automatically square up). That all took a fair bit of time. Here we are after the blade change and getting the fence adjusted and I'm ready to make the first incision. Actually, this will be more like an amputation.

I left the cover installed so I can cut both the case and the cover at the same time and to ensure the cut ends of both will be flush with each other. This is what was left after cutting (the new blade went through it like a hot knife through butter).

The part on the right is what's going to be kept. The other part went to a scrap bin. It was then wash, rinse, and repeat three more times.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

As nice as the new blade cut, it still left saw marks on the cut edges so, after a preliminary deburring, I first filed them out with a vixen file, then attacked the edges with 180, 320, then 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper used dry to polish them up (I normally don't skip grades like that but aluminum and plastic are soft so I was able to get away with it).

This shows where the little piece of anti-rattle foam goes.

This shot is a mock-up of how the SSD will go into the truncated enclosure and how the bevel on the anti-rattle foam will hopefully keep it from tearing as a drive is inserted.

Using the included foam instead of a solid spacer with allow a possibly future thicker SSD to still fit. Sabrent has been giving Samsung a run for their money when it comes to large capacity SSDs. Sabrent may be releasing a 16TB QLC 2.5" SSD soon. They haven't released any specs yet but it wouldn't surprise me it the new drive was a bit thicker than the current 7mm drives. I won't be in any hurry to buy one but I want to be ready for when, and if, I do buy some.

Sadly, as nice as the new dock is, I won't be able to use it for this project. I've spent hours on the "interwebz" trying to find connectors to connect the truncated enclosure to the dock without the dock I'm building becoming too large. I finally found another one that is all USB C that should work much better and it's now on order (along with some more connectors and adapters). I should get it by Thursday. I'm keeping the first dock since it's so cute and may come in handy someday.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This lovely, professional looking photo shows where the USB port on the truncated enclosure is located.

To reduce the height of the new dock, I'm going to use connectors like these to change the direction of the USB port.

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That piece of tape on the connector is to block a bright blue light coming out of it.

Besides more of this right angle connector, I also have four male to male adapters that will plug into the right angle connector on order. Hopefully, these will be able plug directly into the new dock currently on order. Once I have all that mocked up, I can build an aluminum box to go around it all.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The Blunderbolt port is right by the Ethernet port. I have an Ethernet cable with a right angle connector plugged into so it doesn't take up so much desktop space (I had a lot of "fun" finding that little darlin'). To avoid having the cable going from the Blunderbolt port to the new SSD dock sticking out even further than the Ethernet cable connector, I combined two different right angle connectors so the connection can duck under the Ethernet cable.

Here, I have a mock-up of how the cable will wind up going under the Ethernet cable and stick tight to the side of the laptop (I had "fun" taking that photo due to all that black on black).

Now, I'm at the hurry-up-and-wait stage of the project. Joy.

[Marie SWE]

It is always fun to see your different projects.

I was actually a bit inspired by you, to start on one of my own projects to make a smaller pfSense PC then the one I have today(dell optiplex 780 SFF) I have thought about it for a year or almost two soon, but I never got from my thought to actual action do to my laziness and that I'm a bit sick of computers.
so now thanks to you, I have just started to rip out the content from an Xbox 360 to build a smaller PC for pfSense... I will not set a deadline on it as I know myself to well.

So your projects is inspiring for many of us.
Thanks for sharing.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Marie! May your project come out well!

[rossdv8]

I had a similar problem, I have a mob of external 3.5" USB drives and naked SSDs, and I got a powered USB hub with 8 Ports, each with a switch.
My solution to the drives though, was a lot messier than yours

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, after an "interesting" day, I was able to make it down to my mail service and pick up the parts I ordered...well, most of them. Amazon goofed and instead of sending three packs of two connectors, they sent two packs of the connectors and one weird rubber gizmo. At first, their virtual assistant wanted me to send back the entire order. I cut off that chat and tried again, this time just saying I got only two packs of the connectors (which is true) and just forgetting to mention the gizmo. This time, they said they would ship the missing pack and it will arrive Tuesday. Fortunately, the missing pack were just spares so I'm not dead in the water.

This is how I'm currently backing up the bare SSDs that are backing up the desktop drives (for the nonexistent desktop).

It's effective but it's a bit of a pain to set up, it takes up a lot of desktop space, and ties up four USB ports.

Moving right along, here are the two kinds of connectors I had ordered.

They get put together like this.

There are four sets of them, one set for each of the truncated enclosures.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Here, I've plugged in the four connector sets into the new dock I also picked up today.

I've got one of the truncated enclosures plugged in to show how it all will go together.

Things don't align up quite perfectly but the tolerances of the connectors and ports are just loose enough they can be easily pushed into alignment.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I plugged in the other three truncated enclosures to see how much space was going to be between them. It was around 1/16". I have 1/16" aluminum coming out my ears (man, that hurts) so I cut some square spacers to go between the truncated enclosures and deburred, filed, and polished up the edges.

Here is one on a truncated enclosure.

I deliberately cut them a bit undersized due to the curved corners on the enclosures but I'm considering shortening the longer dimension a tiny bit more. Just not tonight, though, it's late and the side effects of the Shingrix shot I got today are finally starting to show up (at least, this is the second and last shot so I'm done with that).

I'm going to use some .006" x 1/2" 3M VHB (very High Bond) tape to put the enclosures/spacers sandwich together but I want to test everything first to make sure it will all work properly (there is a possibility I may have to horse around with the orientation of the male couplers). I can't do it now because the USB port I need to connect to on the computer will be in use until tomorrow morning so I'm going to knock off for the night. When I get back to it will depend somewhat on how hard the Shingrix shot hits me.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

OK, I lied in the previous post. I tried going to bed Friday night but couldn't get to sleep so I got up and shortened the spacers by 1/16", then filed and sanded the edges smooth and flat.

I was feeling kinda crappy yesterday thanks to the Shringrix injection I got the day Friday so I didn't do much. During the day, it dawned on me I should make sure the truncated external enclosures were working before I went any further so I tested them by plugging an SSD in one and connected to the laptop with a short USB cable to see if it would mount. All four checked out fine. That was all I did yesterday.

This morning, after watching some BoobTube videos I subscribe to via FreeTube, I sanded both faces of the aluminum spacers with a red ScotchBrite pad, then scrubbed them clean with some 99% IPA and paper towels. I also sanded and "washed" the sides of the enclosures. After that, I put a couple of strips of 3M VHB tape on each face of each spacer. That tape is impossible to pull apart as is but can be loosened with IPA or acetone (it's messy, though) so, by keeping it down to only two strips of tape, if one of the truncated enclosures should ever go bad, I still will be able to to get the bad one out for replacement (it will just be a messy chore). The stacked enclosures will protrude through a square hole in the case the dock assembly will eventually wind up in so I'm not worried they will ever come apart. I haven't removed the backing strips yet.

Since the VHB tape grabs quite tenaciously, while the backer strips were still on, I aligned each spacer on an enclosure and used blue painters' tape to make a "hinge" for the spacer so, after I removed the backer strips from the VHB tape, the spacer would swing up onto the enclosure in alignment.

You can just see the blue tape hinge in this shot.

After removing the backer strips from the VHB tape, I swung the spacer into position. I did this for three of the enclosures.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The next step was to stick the enclosures and spacers into a sandwich. Here, I have one of the combination squares my Daddy gave me to help me keep the enclosure correctly aligned while sticking them together.

I put a strip of double sided cellophane tape on the head of the square so, when I put the first enclosure against it, the enclosure wouldn't shift on me while sticking the next enclosure onto it.

Then, I removed the backing strip from the spacer stuck to the first enclosure and stuck on the next enclosure.

Using the square like that worked slick as snot on a silicone greased broom handle. Then it was wash, rinse and repeat for the remaining enclosures.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is the enclosure sandwich after the enclosures were all stuck together.

Here, I have the adapter elbows and the male couplers put together and installed in the USB hub, ready to install on the sandwich (or is it the other way around?).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This shows how the couplers and elbows will fit into the enclosures in the sandwich. The alignment is a tiny tad off but there is enough flex in the connectors and ports to let them fit together.

After pushing the elbows the rest of the way into the enclosures, I flipped the assembly over so I could start testing it.

Even though I'm confident the VHB tape will hold the enclosures together just fine, I put some painters' tape around the enclosures as cheap insurance just in case something does go pearshaped. Also, I put some shims under the right angle and coupler adapters so the assembly won't tip over. Once I'm confident everything is working correctly, I'll start work on making a case to house it in.

To test it, I plugged the hub into the computer and started plugging in a 500GB SSD in each slot to see if it would mount. The first slot wound up being dead (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble). I removed the assembly from the hub, then used a short cable to connect the coupler and elbow to the computer. Still dead. I tried reversing the coupler in case it wasn't reversible as classified. Still no joy. I removed the coupler from the elbow and got the SSD to mount. So it appeared the coupler was bad which meant I was dead in the water since the spares I had ordered were the ones that Amazon had shipped wrong and the replacements won't be in until Tuesday. On a wild hunch, I tried another elbow with the coupler in the same orientation I had it in before and "sonuvagun", it worked. Weird. I had another one of those elbows break on me, which is why I ordered spares.

I'm using just the one SSD for testing for now so any differences between SSDs won't skew the tests. The manufacturer of the coupler claims they are reversible. Some reviewers agreed and some did not. To test that, I installed each coupler in a different orientation from the others and I will time the download of a large file to see if orientation matters to write speeds. I'm not worried about read speeds. Once the potential coupler orientation issuse is resolved, I'll start testing with multiple drives.

After putting it all back together again and moving the SSD from enclosure to enclosure (everything worked now), I called it quits for now. I didn't quite get my nap out last night so, after lunch, I'm putting myself down for a nap, then watching some TV. I'll probably do the speed tests tomorrow.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, testing did not end well. The SSD hub could handle four SSDs as long as there was little to no data on them but three 4TB and an 8TB drive that were partially full apparently overwhelmed the USB hub the truncated enclosures were attached to and I couldn't get the drives to mount. It's not a power issue for the Blunderbolt port since I hooked a USB type A four port hub to it and ran four SSDs off of it with no problems mounting them before I tackled this project so it must be that *&^%$#@! USB hub choking up.

I've put the truncated enclosures with the hub still attached into storage for now (or maybe forever) in hopes I may someday find a better hub for the job.

You can't win them all.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It looks like my only alternative may be a Thunderbolt hub. I tried connecting my four Desktop drives in the same kind of enclosures to the first USB hub I got that had two type C and two type A ports on it. It wouldn't pick up the fourth drive. Using adapters, I tried a type A four port hub and, again, not all the drivews would connect, let alone mount.

Besides being bulkier, a Thunderbolt also has to be powered, meaning another power cable and PSU to horse around with.

[rossdv8]

It looks like my only alternative may be a Thunderbolt hub. I tried connecting my four Desktop drives in the same kind of enclosures to the first USB hub I got that had two type C and two type A ports on it. It wouldn't pick up the fourth drive. Using adapters, I tried a type A four port hub and, again, not all the drivews would connect, let alone mount.

Besides being bulkier, a Thunderbolt also has to be powered, meaning another power cable and PSU to horse around with.

I found that the moment I went over 2TB on spinny drives or had more than a couple of 1TB SSDs plugged into a USB hub I had dramas.
That's what drove me to the 8 port powered USB 3 hub, and why, like you, I had to come up with a way to stack the drives.
Once I went to the $70 powered hub I could run several 4TB ordinary HDDs and a number of 1TB SDs without a problem, and although at the moment I don;t have SSDs over 1TB, I'm pretty sure the larger ones would be fine.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It looks like my only alternative may be a Thunderbolt hub. I tried connecting my four Desktop drives in the same kind of enclosures to the first USB hub I got that had two type C and two type A ports on it. It wouldn't pick up the fourth drive. Using adapters, I tried a type A four port hub and, again, not all the drivews would connect, let alone mount.

Besides being bulkier, a Thunderbolt also has to be powered, meaning another power cable and PSU to horse around with.

I found that the moment I went over 2TB on spinny drives or had more than a couple of 1TB SSDs plugged into a USB hub I had dramas.
That's what drove me to the 8 port powered USB 3 hub, and why, like you, I had to come up with a way to stack the drives.
Once I went to the $70 powered hub I could run several 4TB ordinary HDDs and a number of 1TB SDs without a problem, and although at the moment I don;t have SSDs over 1TB, I'm pretty sure the larger ones would be fine.

Thanks for sharing your experience; it sheds new light on the issue! I may look into a powered hub rather than a Thunderbolt hub at a later date. However, one problem (for me) of using a Thunderbolt hub (besides the high price for one or a USB powered hub is it's another piece of hardware (the PSU, either a brick or a wall wart) and another cable taking up space on my desk so I'll have to think about it for a while.