Patent ID: 7570484

Claim:
A system for removably mounting one or more hard disk drives within a computer, the system comprising: a disk drive carrier cage configured for removably mounting a disk drive backplane and eight pair of disk drive carrier rails; a disk drive backplane mounted within the disk drive carrier cage, the disk drive backplane comprising eight disk drive connectors for interfacing with corresponding connectors on hard disk drives removably mounted along the disk drive carrier rails in disk drive carriers, the disk drive backplane further comprising eight first status indicator lights, each of the first status indicator lights corresponding to and located adjacent to a disk drive connector; a disk drive carrier for receiving a hard disk drive and configured for mounting within the disk drive carrier cage along the disk drive carrier rails, the disk drive carrier having a top, bottom, and side, wherein the top and the bottom are entirely constructed from a light transmissive material, and wherein light emitted from a first status indicator light on the backplane is transmitted through the top of the disk drive carrier from the backplane to the front of the disk drive carrier when a disk drive carrier is inserted into the disk drive carrier cage; and wherein each disk drive carrier further comprises two or more locking nubs positioned on the top, bottom, or side of each disk drive carrier, the locking nubs being positioned at locations corresponding to the locations of mounting screw holes of a disk drive when the disk drive is inserted into the disk drive carrier and wherein the disk drive carrier can be flexed to receive the disk drive and wherein when the disk drive carrier returns to a non-flexed state the nubs protrude into the mounting screw holes of the disk drive thereby restraining the disk drive in the disk drive carrier.