Looking for an external sata enclosure

[jtvang125]

These are my requirements:

Atleast 4 sata 1 or 2 drives, 5 would be perfect
Under $200
Atleast a usb 2.0 connection or faster
RAID not necessary
Must allow me to add more hdds as I go
Allow me to see each drive individually instead of a spanned volume

TIA

 

[airhendrix13]

Does your computer support firewire and/or eSATA?

 

[bakaris]

I'm looking for something similar, and my mainboard (asus p5k-e) supports both esata and firewire.

 

[Zepper]

How about having them all internal with this: SST Kublai

Have up to 4 SATA in hot-swap cage ($5. each for extra hot swap connector brackets) and you can hide one more HDD behind the ports panel in bay adapter brackets. Plus more in any spare 5" bays at densities of up to 4 or 5 per three 5" bays with optional cages.

See my review of the KL01 here: http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=296

Probably won't cost much more than an external solution. Plus you can sell your old case. Or look at the Coolview case I have for sale linked below. Has ten 5" bays.

Then here is something to build your own drive rack into: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811164079 - very cheap!

.by.

 

[bakaris]

Well, I currently have an antec1080, which already has a bunch of drive bays. I have 7 hdd in it right now, all of which are near capacity. I was thinking of getting a two or four bay external sata enclosure, but maybe I should just get another case and use it as a file server for movies and music? Or get a new case and use the antec 1080 as the file server. I've never built anything like that before though. I suppose I'd just need a case, a power supply, a mainboard and maybe a raid pci card for expansion drives? I don't imagine I'd need a very powerful powersource or cpu to run it. any suggestions?
Ideally I'd like to be able to access the drives directly, but I suppose this would work as well.

 

[imported_LoKe]

With that many drives you might just as well set up that kind of server. You'll want acceptable cooling and a dedicated power supply.

How about the CM Stacker?

 

[bakaris]

I think the CM stacker may be a bit overkill for a file server, considering i'm using a 5 year old case for my main box.
Maybe the Antec900 at half the price would be a better choice.
any recommendations for a mainboard/cpu combo? cheapest I can find?
for the power source I was thinking the corsair 450VX, or would even that be overkill?

thanks!