Formatting 16 hard drives at once

[syngeratech]

I want to setup a system to be able to low level format up to 16 hard drives at the same time via two 8-bay external enclosures. They will be hooked up via firewire. Most of the hard drives are old 40 & 80 gigers. I was wondering what kind of cpu/ram should I get to do this?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Removed hasty call-out

 

[syngeratech]

umm..... no dude. It's a real question..... and what would I be spamming, there is nothing on the site people can buy. I'm buy computers from businesses and I dont' want to resell them with users info on the drives.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Sorry, lots of spammers come here asking off the wall questions leaving the default black dude avatar and then having their username be the name of their biz. Sorry if I mistook you for one.

As for your question, the cpu and ram shouldnt be much of an issue, My guess would be firewire speeds would be your limiting factor. I would venture to say that some add in cards should give you a little more throughput to get the job done quickly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hey, perhaps you and this other guy should get together. Read this thread- http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2204644&enterthread=y

He wants to format many drives at once too.

 

[syngeratech]

I see firewire cards that have 4 ports on them. Would I be able to transfer at maximum speed on all 4 ports?

 

[syngeratech]

yeah that's my friend, we were trying to figure out the power supply issue