chrisinmtown.github.io
Finding 6-32 Screws for Server Disk Trays
31 Jan 2013
I lucked into a few gently used rack-mount servers at work, and spent a while reconfiguring them and adding them to a Hadoop cluster. The first task was installing disks into empty server disk trays, some people call them sleds. Buy some 3.5inch drives, fasten them with the usual little screws, all easy, right? My IT staff had plenty of 6-32 x 1/4inch screws, I ordered a case of Seagate drives, and off I went.
Once everything arrived I finally took a close look at the clearance on the side of the tray. The tray frame provides a hole that’s just barely countersunk. If the screw head sticks out, that tray just does not want to fit into the slot, and I did not want to force it. Grr.
So off to the cloud of course. I found all sorts of esoteric screws for repairing laptops, and those parts are definitely odd. But these server screws were apparently even less common. Still I found some that were very promising.
One source that specifically advertised screws to fit my exact tray
model was DiscounTechnology, and I ordered theirs. This was close,
but definitely not the right thing. DT customer service was
completely nice when I complained to them but if you don’t got it, you
don’t got it, right? Here’s their link anyhow:
http://discountechnology.com/Counter-Sunk-Screws-6-32-x-0-25-with-100-degree-angle-for-Dell-trays-x-20
This picture shows the most common 6-32 screw on the left, the ones from DT in the middle, and the ones I actually need on the right.
Turns out that both Dell and SuperMicro use these super-tiny-head screws on their server disk trays. I finally got a package of screws from the nice people at Padova Technologies. They had sold us a batch of servers some time back and were willing to share their surplus of screws.
Hope this picture helps you tell your vendor what’s required! I wish I had a better ending to this post, like a solid recommendation where you can just buy them. If you find a reliable source for these tiny screws, drop me a line and I’ll add a link.
Update 9 Nov 2017
I finally have a better ending to this post! Peter O. of the United Kingdom sent a solid recommendation for sourcing these elusive disk-tray screws. And I quote:
Thank you for your blog post
I came across it after ordering the wrong screws for Dell 2.5 and 3.5 inch caddys. Right thread and length but head diameter and countersink way too big.
Almost ordered from DiscTech too, but postage to the UK was prohibitive!
Anyway, thanks to your post I then included SuperMicro instead of Dell in my searches and found this:
https://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/index.cfm?Type=30
MCP-410-00005-0N Screw bag (100 pcs) and label for 24x hot swap 3.5" HDD tray
MCP-410-00006-0N Screw bag (100 pcs) and label for 24x hot swap 2.5" HDD tray
Finally armed with part numbers a good number of sellers of those come up on Google.
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