External Enclosures that hold multiple drives

[TallBill]

I found This drive on newegg, but its $115 and doesn't accept SATA.

Does anyone else make such a thing? I guess its not to pricey, since one external enclosure can run $20-30.

 

[bobbyz]

Check this out

MacGurus

 

[Zepper]

http://directron.com/cdtower.html and there are cheap cases around with 9 or ten 5" bays that you can install HDD cages like the Coolermaster Device Module or just use 3.5 to 5.25" adapters like the one linked above. Newegg has 9-bay for as low as $45. (w/ a real junk-bucket PSU but still probably enough for 9 or 10 drives. Ten bay for as low as $100. and eleven for, well fageddaboudit. But there are others around (codegen used to make some in the 8000 and 9000 series but I haven't seen them around lately) that are similar to the $45. one for the same or less and you don't have to pay for a junk-bucket PSU with only 20A on the +12. You could put up to 12 drives into the $45. case using the CM cages. And you can get even more 5" bays on sites like http://www.servercases.com and http://www.buildtoorderservers.com if you're willing to pay...

.bh.

 

[erwos]

Multi-bay enclosures that take SATA drives are expensive these days. If you can settle for IDE, you'll be able to find them at more reasonable prices. I know - I recently got bit by the same issue. I'm not particularly pleased that I had to go with the more expensive enclosure, but I didn't have much other choice.

The problem is that the controllers for these cases are the lion's share of the cost, and you need more controllers as you increase the number of hard drives. That's why it doesn't get any cheaper as you get more drives. Factor in the higher cost of the SATA-capable controllers that can handle two drives at a time, and you know why things are so expensive.

If you're the modding sort, you can buy an appropriately-sized case from Directron with no controllers and then wire it up with eSATA using the appropriate cables, a dremel tool, and some superglue. Make sure the cables are VERY secure, though - SATA doesn't take well to jostling.

 

[XMan]

I was in on the beta test of this unit but it's extremely pricey, IMO. It does work well though.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: XMan
I was in on the beta test of this unit but it's extremely pricey, IMO. It does work well though.

I saw Marvell showing off the chipset for that thing at CES. Looks moderately useful, basically a modified form of RAID 5, but it had pretty poor performance according to the marvell rep compared to a real raid 5 on a controller.

 

[TallBill]

Thanks for the info guys. I might have to go the ATA route, but we'll see. Stuff might get cheaper in 7 months.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: krotchy
I saw Marvell showing off the chipset for that thing at CES. Looks moderately useful, basically a modified form of RAID 5, but it had pretty poor performance according to the marvell rep compared to a real raid 5 on a controller.

Agreed. Nice concept, but you're better off going with Windows Home Server (in the future) or software RAID 5 for Linux.

 

[TallBill]

We'll see. I do have an old athlon xp 1800 machine laying around doing nothing. I could easily toss some drives with a controller card in it. I have a few possabilities, and with 500 gb hard drives gettng cheaper and cheaper, it really gets easy.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: TallBill
We'll see. I do have an old athlon xp 1800 machine laying around doing nothing. I could easily toss some drives with a controller card in it. I have a few possabilities, and with 500 gb hard drives gettng cheaper and cheaper, it really gets easy.

This is exactly what I did. I took my old AthlonXP SFF box, put Fedora Core 6 on, and slapped as much storage as I could on to the USB2 and IEEE1394a buses. It's not particularly speedy, but it benchmarks at least as well as a good NAS box, and it's got expansion room to go.

I'll probably end up moving to Windows Home Server and a pure SATA setup in late-2008, early-2009, but, for now, it's working out nicely.

 

[Zepper]

Yeah, you could build a cheap system and get an 8-port or more SATA card for a nice speedy storage server. A whole lot faster than any USB or FW solution.

.bh.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Yeah, you could build a cheap system and get an 8-port or more SATA card for a nice speedy storage server. A whole lot faster than any USB or FW solution.

.bh.

Anyone have experience with eSata? Seems like yet another viable option.

 

[piasabird]

Look at the prices on some of these items and decide if it is worth it. Dont spend more than it costs to buy a new barebones computer and stick a couple large harddrives in it.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Yeah, you could build a cheap system and get an 8-port or more SATA card for a nice speedy storage server. A whole lot faster than any USB or FW solution.

An 8-port SATA card, just by itself, is probably going to run $250 minimum. The system isn't exactly cheap after that.

And for most purposes, FW-400 and USB2 have more than enough bandwidth. You'll only really see the difference during "fast-as-you-can" file transfers.

 

[Synomenon]

If you can you're ok with just two hard drives, this one is pretty good:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817715001


I have their single drive enclosure and it's nice. The unit itself is pretty heavy duty. Looks like they used high grade stuff to make it.