I’ve found an Inspiron with an FX8800P and 1 3.5” slot and a DVD slot. I intend to use it in my 3-2-1 backup with two drives (one hot, one warm) and the third backup in AWS Glacier (inb4 fuck Amazon - it’s cheap). It will also function as a NAS.
Have you placed a 3.5” drive in the 5.25” DVD bay? I understand you may need an adapter. Not sure if I can skip that.
The reason I can’t use a consumer NAS is because I want to power one of the drives off for power, longevity, and I don’t want to use RAID (also they’re quite $$$).
Edit:
Doesn’t look like a dock is necessary…
Yeah so the answer is no
the number of years i’ve run usb->sata adapters and had (up to a dozen or so) bare drives laying around and propped up anywhere i could find a spot…
…hanging from their cables…