Internal USB hub in an MDD

[jruschme]

I was wondering if any of you had ever put a front-facing USB hub in the lower optical bay of an MDD.

Any suggestions on mounting a regular hub (I figure the door will hide most aesthetic flaws) or should I just go with a commercial drive-bay hub?

Thanks...
JR

[Skubert]

I heard that USB PCI cards with NEC chipset work with OS X, or at least with Tiger. They provide 4 usb on back and one internal port.
You can connect powered USB hub to internal port and somehow mount it in lower optical bay and connect external power cord through back of case to HUB.
Sadly, I've never tried any of these, so I can't tell if it work.

[jruschme]

That's exactly the setup I have and what I was thinking of doing.

A bit more detail, I was pondering this for a while, but kind of had the idea gel when I freed up a 7-port hub I had been using. It has 5 vertical ports on the front and two on the rear along with the B connector and power connector. It's a little narrower than a 3.5" drive, but about the same height as a 3.5" hard drive.

My thought was to somehow hard mount it to a 5.25" adapter (floppy/zip bracket) and put it in the lower bay. Except for a cable to power the hub from the optical bay PSU connection, the rest looks like cake. I'm just wondering if I'm missing any gotchas on the bay doors, etc.

JR