An Optiplex and a disk walk into a bar...

So let's say you have a Dell Optiplex 745 minitower that you'd like to expand by adding another disk. Other than getting another computer, what can you do or watch out for?

• The second drive bay is right under the first drive bay. The only fan in the system is the CPU fan above. This may cause some heat problems... See http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/op745/en/UG_en/mt_drive.htm#wp1136008
• No SATA cables (data or power) are provided for the second disk
• If you want to add additional cooling be aware that since the optical device is also SATA now, the only non-SATA power is to the floppy drive and the leads to the main fan.

On the bright side...

• The Zalman ZM-2HC2 disk cooler works in the bay under the optical bay
• The Highpoint RocketRaid 2200 PCI Express works in the PCIe x1 bay (and actually works under x64 Vista)