Let me give you a little backstory to this idea/project.

I've recently been upgrading my gaming pc and I had just finished installing my new motherboard, processor, and video card when my roomate decided to upgrade his case.

He upgraded to the CM Storm Stryker, an amazing case by the way, and it came complete with a hardware tray for his spare parts. Not wanting to be outdone, I searched the internet high and low. But alas, none of the cases I liked had an internal hardware tray.

I resolved myself to do without. I got a Corsair Obsidian 750D Airflow. A very sleek and sophisticated case. I put it together and looked at the empty hot swap bays. I thought, surely I can build something to fit in this to hold my hardware. I stewed on that thought until I got to work and saw in front of me a dismantled hard drive.

Turns out I didn't have to build anything, I just had to take a hard drive apart.

I feel this project will be most applicable to people like me who happen to have the hot swap bays easily accessible. But you may be able to do this without them if you chose.

Parts/Materials

Any old harddrive

Drill

A set of torx wrenches or bits

Some kind of fasteners

Step 1: Take Apart the Harddrive.

Start by taking off the cover. Note that there may be a hidden screw under the label.

Once inside you need to remove as much as you can without leaving a hole in the bottom. Its for this reason that I had to leave the motor inside the hard drive. It wouldn't be a very good hardware tray ifit dropped the hardware right out the bottom.

But you can easily remove the platters, magnets, and whatever you call the little arm. I'm really drawing a blank on that right now.

Step 2: Install Fasteners

Now you can install your fasteners. I only have a solid state hard drive, so I drilled holes and installed magnets. I also glued magnets to the top of the case (who knew the case wasn't magnetic).

Most people would probably prefer to use something along the lines of thumb screws. Especially in close proximity to other hard drives, where neodymium magnets can cause data loss and damage.