Storage tower for multiple IDE large capacity hard drives?

[dandee2005]

I have five internal 200GB+ IDE PATA hard drives that are each housed in their own external caddie and connect to my PC via USB 2.0. I use them to back up my data that's on my PC.

But it's beginning to get a bit ridiculous having all these external enclosures lying around so I'm wondering whether anyone knows of a type of hardware that would house all five hard disks in one large single enclosure? Basically like a PC tower but without all the PCI slots, motherboards or video cards etcc..just some fans (or other cooling device), power supply and a USB connection (or maybe wireless connection for faster data transfer>?). Ideally I would also be able to turn on any of the hard drives at one time instead of all of them having to be on when the power supply is connected. This way I can just connect the tower to my PC and backup my data.

Thanks for any responses.

 

[andy04]

Heres One
http://www.ocie.com/product_56_detailed.htm

You also get in other colors. Froogle "multiple external HDD case"

Heres More
http://www.directron.com/cdtowern571b.html

Even More ...
http://www.axiontech.com/prdt.php?item=71301

 

[Lonyo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...4+115750985&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=124
One of those

 

[dandee2005]

Thanks for the excellent suggestions guys, I really appreciate it as I don't have much knowledge regarding external storage towers and how to set them up.

I've also found the following setups:

-Icy Dock mb810akf (fits 5 X 3.5" ATA HDs)
http://www.icydock.com/product/mb810akf.html

-4u Rackmount Case (7x 3.5") [but not sure if it fits IDE/SATA]
http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=21483

-Addonics [probably the best choice but seems a bit fiddly when ordering as you need to order brackets, the correct interface etc..]
http://www.addonics.com/products/external_hdd/

Any other suggestions or advice regarding my choices would be really great. Thanks again.

 

[dandee2005]

Any thoughts please guys?

 

[SuperNaruto]

No because ide isn't design for external w/o the use of USB or Firewire..

running multiple ribbon cables is not exactly the best idea... there are custom systems but its way to expensive.. upgrading to sata will ease this because of external sata adapters.

 

[dandee2005]

I would upgrade to SATA but all my HDs are IDE so it would be a waste for me to just throw them out when they work perfectly well for storage/backups.

When you say running multiple ribbon cables, are you talking about IDE ribbon cables, which are attached to the storage HDs, connecting to my normal system? I'm not wanting to do this since of course it would really hinder the functioning of my normal PC.

My aim is to connect all the storage HDs via IDE to an IDE controller then access each HD one at a time (or when needed) using a USB connection which would connect to my normal PC. I can't see why there would be a problem with this as my individual external enclosures work without any issues, I just hate having them all over the place lying around.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[betasub]

I just hate having them all over the place lying around.

Do you need to leave them lying around the whole time? Label each one and store them away until you actually need them for backup. Unless you need the them for continuous or freqent access, your backup data should be stored well away from active data.

 

[Zap]

Those CD duplicator towers are pretty cheap. Hopefully they support 48 bit LBA.

These boxes are pretty sexy, but expensive.

I bought my 2x drive enclosure from this eBay store.

Note that whenever using a single box with multiple hard drives, generally speaking they are either all on or all off. I suppose if you can get it to work, use those "mobile rack" pull out bays with a keylock that also cuts power. This way just set the ones you want to power on before hitting the power button.