Connectors

Accordingly, it would be desirable to enable different removable computer drive carriers to be interchangeably inserted into the same drive bay of a chassis regardless of whether the computer drive is connected for serial or parallel operation and without having to make alteration to the chassis or to the drive. A printed circuit board that is electrically connected to the multi-pin connector is mounted on and faces outwardly from the back wall of the U-shaped body. In this case, the integrated circuit chip on which the bridge is implemented is connected to a printed circuit board that is mounted on the back wall of carrier. The serial-to-parallel bridge is implemented as an integrated circuit chip that is connected to the circuit board at the back wall of the universal receiving frame without requiring space consuming wires or cables to be interfaced with the chassis in which the frame is located.

A corresponding plurality of pull-out peripheral circuit boards are detachably,and connected to the opposite side of the backplane so as to be interconnected with respective ones of the portable drives within the removable carriers. So as to accommodate both the serial and parallel connected computer drives. Therefor remains connected to the circuit board at the back wall of the receiving frame. In some cases, however, the peripheral circuit board may be connected to the front of backplane and then coupled to the rear by means of a cable. Depending upon how the pull-out peripheral circuit board is interfaced with hardware that is external to chassis, either a serial-to-serial or a serial-to-parallel converter is connected to the circuit board which is detachably connected to the rear of backplane. The drive interface connector is in turn, connected to a male SCA backplane interface connector that is mounted at the rear of the removable disc drive carrier. In the installed computer storage assembly, when the removable disc drive carrier is received within its chassis, the male backplane interface connector at the rear of carrier is detachably connected to a complementary female SCA backplane interface connector that is associated with a backplane.