[CentOS] eSATA drive enclosure of a full PC?

[John R Pierce]

Slack-Moehrle wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> Yes, I looked into this and I was looking for a solution with a large number of drives, but at a good cost point.
>
> So you are saying a full fledged PC with an 8-port sata mobo is a better solution.
>   

yeah, its cheaper to go direct connect internal jbod.    make sure the 
drives get plenty of airflow, don't pack them too close together.

a bunch of vendors sell 5-in-3 sata hotswap adapters that hold 5 SATA 
drives in 3 HH external bays of a jumbo tower chassis.  they seem to run 
about $100.  each drive bay has its own sata port on the back of these.

example of one of these,
http://www.amazon.com/SUPERMICRO-Hot-Swap-Mobile-System-Cabinet/dp/B00009ILU0

if you get a motherboard that has a 2nd x8 or x16 slot, you can put an 
x4 PCI-express card in that for lots more SATA/SAS channels if you feel 
the need to really expand.   I wouldn't put more than 4 SATA ports on a 
PCI-E x1 slot.