Looking for a linux compatible "disk caddy" for a desktop computer

I'm not sure where I should ask this question. I'm looking for a
"piece of hardware" and a recent posting suggests that it might be
called a disk caddy.

I have several desktop systems and several laptops, and I've been
migrating to work mostly on the laptops. It makes the personal
computer really personal--it's the one in my hands at this moment.
However, there is still some stuff I find convenient to keep on the
desktops, since I can leave them up for my wife when I'm not at home.

Anyway, the laptops are mostly ibm thinkpads T23, A30p, A31p that I
can use the same 2.5" ATA drives in, and I've got a pull-out bay for
putting a 2nd drive in each machine. (I have a couple of other
laptops, but they don't have the same bay, so there not part of the
equation.)

The desktops are mostly older machines, a Sony Vaio, a DELL, and a
noname clone. These machines mostly have AT IDE drives (except for
the clone which has SCSI disks in it, but also has an IDE controller).

Now, most of the machines (laptops and desktops) are dual boot,
Linux/XP.

I also have this Maxtor 80GB USB external drive that I use for backing
up and moving partitions from one machine to another. However, it is
slow.

What I would prefer is some kind of disk caddy that I could pop a 2.5"
drive in and have it be directly accessed by the machine, i.e. it
would either be on the current IDE controller, or it would have a
controller on a plug in PCI card, that I could plug into the
motherboard of the desktops systems. (I would, of course, buy at
least two of these caddies and install them permanently in two of the
desktops.) The caddy doesn't have to be hot-swappable, although that
would be nice. I could probably live with a USB caddy solution, since
I could still use the 2.5" drives directly in the bay and only have to
deal with USB speed when connecting to the desktop machines.

I'm looking for a recommendation for where to search for such a piece
of hardware and any recommendations so that I can be certain that the
caddy/board is Linux compatible (no winboards thank you). I'm
currently running CentOS (a RedHat clone) if that makes any
difference.

Thanks for any pointers,
-Chris

.

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