External Multi-IDE HDD case/rack/small cabinet

[gimps]

Hopefully this is the right place to put this...
Anyway, I have more HDDs than will fit in my tower. What I'm looking for is some kind of external IDE case that will connect via USB, FireWire, or whatever.
Is there anything like that out there, for the end-user which doesn't cost like $500? Or where should I go to look up something like this?
Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[CamNeely]

Try this..........
or this...complete with review. Hope that helps. You can find more by searching for "external hard drive enclosure" on www.google.com .

 

[gimps]

hmmm.. kinda. Was looking more for a multi-drive enclosure, though. Already got 4 HDDs, cd-rw+dvd, and a cd-rom... along with a couple extra drives I just picked up (WD 120gb and 200gb).
Not sure what it would be called..
I guess maybe an external harddrive rack.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I ran into that situation a few years back ... what i did (probably wont work for you since they are IDE and the cables cant be extended that long) is stick a minitower on top of my regular PC Case ... run a 6 foot SCSI cable out the top of my main tower into the AT minitower ... used the minitower for 3 hard drives and a cdrom ... it even had its own power supply 🙂

what may work for you (will be expensive ... but should be less than $500) is to build a really cheap box ... and use it for Network Attached Storage ... probably would cost $200 to $250 to set up something in the 500mhz range

Why not just upgrade to a full tower (if you dont have one already) I have room for 6 hard drives ... and 6 cdroms in my case ... its quite easy to use 5.25 to 3.5 converters to make more room for hard drives if you dont plan on using 6 cdrom bays.
Just make sure you have a decent Power Supply
(currently this box has 5 hard drives and 4 optical drives)

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: gimps
hmmm.. kinda. Was looking more for a multi-drive enclosure, though. Already got 4 HDDs, cd-rw+dvd, and a cd-rom... along with a couple extra drives I just picked up (WD 120gb and 200gb).
Not sure what it would be called..
I guess maybe an external harddrive rack.

Well you have a few options:

1) Replace your old drives with newer bigger drives....
2) Realize that you have collected way more storage then you actually need.
3) Buy a bigger case and a mobo with more connectors.

Thorin