Building an external multi-HD case?

[clk]

I have way too many (6) small HDs in my case right now (60 - 160gb). I know I could replace them with 2 or 3 big drives, but I really like the flexibility of many drives for increasing speed during read/write operations.

Anyway, I'd like to build a small case to hold all of my HDs which will allow me to maximize cooling and provide a separate PS to improve reliability.

My first question is where can I purchase the pre-drilled drive mounting rails found in virtually every case without the surrounding case? Anything that will allow me to hold the drives to the frame would be great.

My second question is what's the best way to power this mess? I have read that jumping an ATX PS to run without a mobo can lead to premature failure because you'll miss the voltage monitoring circuits. Is that true? What are my options?

 

[clk]

An additional piece of this puzzle (And the reason I want to move quickly) is that my PC will currently not boot if I do a hot restart. That's right, if I turn my computer off and then immediately back on, it won't even begin to post. Some things light up, but not many. If I keep trying, I can eventually get it to snap everything on, but it's very annoying. My guess is that the 420W Thermaltake PS I bought a year ago is starting to puss out. So I'm assuming that by moving all of my HDs to a separate supply and out of the case, my current PS will stay cooler and last longer and I will be able to restart my machine with less pain.

 

[Safeway]

Yea, get a new PSU.

Did you join this forum just to ask these weird questions? YOu will have to have extremely long IDE cables to reach from a breakout box to your Mobo unless you cut a hole in the side of the case.

 

[Zepper]

Welcome to the AT Forums.

Too bad your drives aren't SCSI - your goal would be easy to accomplish then. If your drives are PATA, then you still may be SOL as PATA cables over 24" are pretty iffy. You can get fairly long SATA cables that work externally, but they ain't cheap.
. Probably the best idea for PATA drives is to rig them up externally with Firewire or high-speed USB. I have seen at least a three drive external FW chassis (at http://www.geeks.com ), but not lately. And the Geeks often have their IDE to USB converter cable on sale for under $15. Check the "Green Light Specials" at the Geeks every day this month from 11am to 2pm PDT.
. A lot of odd parts can be found at CyberGuys.com but their prices are a bit high, IMO. An online store in nevada carries some odd parts too but I've forgotten the name.

.bh.

 

[clk]

Yeah, all of the drives are PATA. Right now, I have 4 of the drives running off a PCI controller card which is in my bottom slot. If I only move those drives out, 24" ought to be enough - I hope. I considered the USB route, but I'd be worried about the performance hit when moving data between drives. I might be imagining things but my intuition tells me transfers might suffer. Maybe I'm wrong.

As for just replacing the power supply, that would fix my immediate boot-up problems. It will not, however, help me with my 120+° hard drives. Nomatter how you cut it, I think having an Antec full tower with every slot filled will never quite achieve greatness with ambient air cooling.

 

[albumleaf]

A friend of mine has four ata drives running inside of a firewire enclosure... Let me see if i can find his post.

picture (it's on the left.. the small box on top)

 

[Zepper]

Yes, copying or transferring data from one FW or USB to another will slow things down dramatically but how often would you be doing that? If you kept your largest drive in the main chassis holding your OS and proggies and just used the external drives to hold data, then that should work OK. IAC, it shouldn't be much worse than transferring data between two drives that are on the same PATA channel...

.bh.

 

[clk]

A quick bit of research brings me to cooldrives.com which apparently sells those units. They come with raid and all that fun stuff. Unfortunately, it looks like it'd be $120 for a 2-drive setup and $250 for 4 drives. They're probably worth the price, but it might be overkill for me.

 

[Safeway]

It is overkill to want to mount them externally when people put 12 drives in a full tower Stacker.

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Yes, copying or transferring data from one FW or USB to another will slow things down dramatically but how often would you be doing that? If you kept your largest drive in the main chassis holding your OS and proggies and just used the external drives to hold data, then that should work OK. IAC, it shouldn't be much worse than transferring data between two drives that are on the same PATA channel...

.bh.

Not only slow but with larger files you may get a Delayed Write Failure.