[CentOS] eSATA drive enclosure of a full PC?

Sun Feb 21 17:54:58 UTC 2010
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

John R Pierce wrote:
>,
>>
>> 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.

There are other brands/sizes of those trayless hotswap enclosures too.  I've 
used a unit from Startech and swapped one of the drives out of a raid weekly for 
an off-site rotation without any trouble for over a year now.  You do need a big 
tower case that could take 5" drives all the way down, but it's nicer than 
having cables and power off to an odd-sized external box and very handy to not 
have to open the case to trade drives once it is set up.  If this is a 
single-user PC or even a media server for a few people at once you probably 
don't have to worry about extreme speed issues and would get along fine with an 
8-port PCI-X or -E card.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com