Fractal Design Define R5 hard drive tray

This is a hard drive tray (sled) for the Fractal Design Define R5 computer case.  This tray uses the stock rubber grommet and standoff screws to provide vibration isolation.  Unlike the stock trays, this tray is compatible with all hard drive mounting hole positions.

The SFF-8301 standard for 3.5 inch hard drives specifies three pairs of bottom mounting holes.  The pair closest to the SATA connector is required on all drives, but only one of the other two pairs is required.  Traditionally, consumer drives use the close pairs and enterprise drives use the far pairs.  The stock tray was designed with only consumer drives in mind.  While the stock tray does fit on enterprise drives, the drive is offset so far to the right of the case (see pictures) that cables will be pressed against the right panel.  If the cables are stiff, as PSU cables bearing 3 or 4 SATA power connectors usually are, it may not be possible to get the right panel back on after connecting cables.

This tray holds the drive in a uniform position regardless of which mounting holes it has.  As shown in the pictures, the drive sits closer to the left side of the case in this tray compared to the stock tray, providing more space for cable management.  This makes it much easier to connect stiff SATA power cables without pressing against the side of the case.  On the other hand, if you are mixing and matching these trays with the stock trays and using right-angle SATA cables, you will need to put all of the stock trays above these trays.  (Also, if you have built your own drive backplane, drives in these trays will not make contact with it, but presumably you have your own tray design.)

I printed these on a Qidi Plus4 in PETG with 30% aligned rectilinear infill, with the infill lines perpendicular to the side rails to resist sag.  The model contains integral supports for the locking tab levers to make them printable in PETG.  I recommend snapping the levers free before mounting a drive to the tray.

I do not recommend printing this in PLA, as it will sag (creep) under the sustained weight of a drive.  Should creep occur, the protrusions on each side rail will contact the drive, which should prevent total failure of the tray, but obviously loses the vibration isolation provided by the rubber grommets.

I designed this model in FreeCAD.  Almost all dimensions are parametric, based on the VarSet object attached to the body.  In particular, you can adjust the hole sizes using the ‘hole extra diameter’ parameters.