Help with DIY external storage needed

ListysDad · Post by **ListysDad** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:27 am

I have 4 drives currently fitted to my antec case. When typing the sound of the keyboard is louder even though its just 300mm away so I'me very pleased!

My problem is that I've an esata raid box which when I turn it one to do my backups sounds like a bloomin jet taking off. Its only a 40mm fan so is a cr*p designed enclosure so I thinking I'd like to build an external storage array of some kind which would be of greater capacity and MUCH quieter. I have a PSU I could use and building an enclosure is no problem.

I have two raid connections available from my Mobo which can be taken externally. Does any one know how I might be able to 'convert' them to take 4 drives? I hope that makes sense!

Unfortunately I only have a matx mobo and there are no slots left to put in an additional card!

David

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:33 am

This looks too good to be true, but maybe it's perfect for you: http://www.cooldrives.com/ulcoducosaii.html

It uses an 80mm fan, so it should be quiet out-of-the-box. EDIT: Didn't notice it requires a connection per HDD, no RAID.

Most other enclosures especially with RAID support only have 40mm fans or 60mm fans, too bad

ListysDad · Post by **ListysDad** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:37 am

Thanks LH. I have two probs with that though.
The first is that it will only take 500gb drives and secondly its $170 which with shipping to the uK woudl take it well outside what I can currently spend.
As I said, I'm happy to make an enclosure its just the electronics really I feel i need.
David

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:47 am

ListysDad wrote:Thanks LH. I have two probs with that though.
The first is that it will only take 500gb drives and secondly its $170 which with shipping to the uK woudl take it well outside what I can currently spend.
As I said, I'm happy to make an enclosure its just the electronics really I feel i need.
David

Thing is, no one is selling naked enclosures, meaning you can't probably use your potential for building the enclosure

This is expensive, but would work I guess: http://www.firewire-1394.com/4-bay-hot- ... id-kit.htm

The enclosure I linked to earlier doesn't really look like it is limited to 500GB HDDs. At least there's no mention of 500GB being the limit. It's also the "cheapest" I could find, so maybe you're out of luck

I'll definitely keep searching though, hang in there brother

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 9:00 am

Rereading your post I got an idea. Poor man's RAID can be achieved

Here are all the ingredients you need:
2x http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/img/data ... _cable.jpg

Now where to get that

ListysDad · Post by **ListysDad** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:43 am

Ok, I'm listening...
What do you suggest?

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:26 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/Gigabyte-Motherboar ... 9004r27609

I suggest that. Two actually. It'll cost you around Â£17.5 including shipping for two kits.
What do you think?

ListysDad · Post by **ListysDad** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 1:41 pm

that only allows me two disks. how can I inrease ththat number?

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:04 pm

ListysDad wrote:that only allows me two disks. how can I inrease ththat number?

By buying a second one,

LodeHacker wrote:I suggest that. Two actually.

footfukinmasta · Post by **footfukinmasta** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 9:10 am

How about one of these? You said you wanted more than 4 drives right?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816111051

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 12:29 pm

footfukinmasta wrote:How about one of these? You said you wanted more than 4 drives right?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816111051

If $170 is above his budget I'm not really sure he wants to pay double of that.

He wants to build a case himself so it's a matter of just getting SATA ports outside of the PC case along with DC power. Two Gigabyte adapters will suffice for four SATA HDDs. He'll also need four SATA to eSATA cables, but all this including materials for DIY case should not be much, maybe sub $50 if he wants to build a complex case.

awx · Post by **awx** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 3:53 pm

I own one of the Sans Digital TR8U 8-bay JBOD USB enclosures. It can be made to be quiet after you replace the 120 mm fan. Weirdly the 80 mm fan in the PSU is already nearly silent. And 5400 rpm drives are a must. SMART data doesn't pass through to the host.

ListysDad · Post by **ListysDad** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:15 am

Hi guys.

I'm not sure I've made myself very clear. If not I apologise!

I have these 6 sata connectors on my mobo (A-N78HD). I use 4 already (and will continue to) and the others are labelled RAID connectors.

What I want, is to somehow connect (if possible) 4 more drives as 2 seperate 2 raid arrays via esata (it's a speed thing as USB is soo slow) in an external enclosure which I'll make.

My Q is, how do I achieve this?

I realise I can simply take the two connectors off via esata connectors but that doesn't (as far as I'm aware anyway) deliver me the 4 drives I would like just two.

Many thanks
David

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:12 pm

I still don't understand what you are after. With RAID connector I thought you meant eSATA! Also, SATA allows for only one device to be connected per connection.

ListysDad · Post by **ListysDad** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:41 pm

LH

You have kind of answered my question with yours. As I only have 2 connections available, it seems to me that I can only have two external drives. These woudl then be configured as a raid array by the BIOS.

Do you know of any other way of getting an external raid array using something other than USB?

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:10 pm

Adding a pci RAID sata card? From my understanding they're quite cheap...at least they make cheap ones...I don't know how well they work.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:34 pm

LodeHacker wrote:I still don't understand what you are after. With RAID connector I thought you meant eSATA! Also, SATA allows for only one device to be connected per connection.

Yes and no.

Yes with nothing but a controller at one end and a drive at the other you only get one drive per cable.

Most raid enclosures use a port multiplier which allows up to 15 disks per sata cable to the final host. Ideally you don't exceed the number of drives equal to 300MB/s divided by the average sustained read per drive (think 2 SSDs or 4 modern hard drives).

Some enclosures have a single sata cable to the host on an entire stack of drives. Nicer ones offer two cables per stack or one cable per drive.

I'll also toss in the quote off of /.

KonoWatakushi wrote:Make sure to find a port multiplier with FBSS (FIS-based switching) support. Also make sure that your SATA controller supports this feature. Otherwise, there can only be one outstanding command for all attached disks, and performance will be abysmal.

uggh I'm too sleepy to know if I made sense. Gnight all.

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:44 pm

Indeed, SATA 300 supports port multipliers. I still had the SATA 150 specification in mind, which to my knowledge doesn't support a port multiplier. Either way it depends solely on the SATA/RAID controller whether it supports a port multiplier and an expansion card won't be an option here as the OP has all expansion slots filled in his motherboard.