Does this external enclosue exist?

M

MrMitch

Spinning Drives Rule!
Joined
Dec 13, 2004
Messages
2,611
I need on with the following

External
4 or 5 SATA disk
Single Power Cord
Single Data Cable, USB 2 or eSATA, ideally have both

and the biggie, present each disk individually to windows. I want to use it with WHS, and use its drive pool, so I don't want RAID or anything, just kinda pass thru.

Not sure if that is even possible using just 1 cable to the pc tho.

Cheaper is better but hoping under $150 or so.

halp?

spelling fail in thread title, please don't shoot me.
 
USB2 for 4 to 5 drives. :eek: performance will take you back to the 1980s.. Assuming you need to use more than 1 drive at a time.

Cheaper is better but hoping under $150 or so.
Click to expand...
If that is your budget I would just get a bigger case for the system.
 
Yes, there are products that somewhat matches your requirements:
$110 - Sans Digital TR4M 4 Bay SATA to eSATA (Port Multiplier) JBOD Enclosure
$122 - Sans Digital TR4U-B 4 Bay SATA to USB JBOD Enclosure

I say go for the eSATA version. It's cheaper and provides that much of a significant performance jump over USB.
 
AMS Venus T5

I don't think you can buy these new anymore...one's a frys actually have *hardware raid* vs. the older model that is fake-raid *or* jbod.

I own about 6 of them and am gradually decomissioning all of them as I bring up all my SAS-based storage (search here for: 'ZFS Monster').

I was NOT happy with port-multiplier under unix...however, suspect it's more stable under Windows.
 
Hmm, that kind of storage capacity on a $150 budget is kind of difficult... Not only you need to have at least a 3x5.25'' enclosure (with a 5-in-3 adapter, which itself is over $100) with a 5-port SATA port multiplier (starting at $65) AND a SiI 3132-based (for the PCIe bus, there is also an older controller for PCI, but it's a 4-port design and costs $75, instead of $30) host controller to be able to have 5 independent drives to be presented to the OS. So yeah, it IS possible, but not that cheap.

The options already presented are either internal (and needing one SATA cable per drive) or Hardware Port Multiplier-based, which can be used with any eSATA port on the host machine, but can only present one volume to the host (that is a limitation of non-PM-aware controllers, which still are the vast majority).

PM is too big of a subject to go in detail here (types of PMs, capabilities, etc., etc.), but I'd be happy to dish out some more pointers if needed.

That being said, what you want is already available on the market, just not at that price point :p

Please check the Addonics site for the Storage Tower solutions. Either the Storage Tower (classic) or the Mini Storage Tower should give you 4 3.5'' bays on the simplest configuration with a 5-port SATA-eSATA PM, which can be expanded to 10 2.5'' HDDs (with enough adapters and an extra PM card and eSATA cable) on the Mini tower, and probably 12 2.5'' HDDs on the classic tower (with at least two more cables).

The models you should be locking at are ST5X1PM and ST5X1PM-B (for the Classic tower) and MST5X1PM and MST5X1PM-B (for the Mini tower), with the "-B" standing for black case. Prices start at $175 for the Mini, though as I said before, you'll need a SiI-based PM-aware host controller, like this one (available in both SATA and eSATA variants, and there are countless clones on the market).

Oh, one more thing: you can re-purpose any standard ATX case as a storage enclosure. Those Storage Towers I referred to just have one of these inside, so you can save a buckload of money if you're willing to BYOC (Bring Your Own Case), which could drive the HDD count even higher (up to 15 hot-swap drives, and up to 40 overall from a big 8-expansion slot case).

OK, I'll shut up now, that's enough information for one day. Hope this helps!


P.S.: I'm not affiliated with Addonics in any kind (I haven't even purchased anything from them, since they operate on the wrong side of the Atlantic from where I'm standing - Portugal). I found the site a few years ago while searching for PM hardware, and since then it has been one of the very few (only a couple, actually, and the other one is a shady Taiwan clone manufacturer) sites handling with consumer-level Port-Multiplier hardware.
 
I think I have just the thing you're looking for. It has both eSATA(needs a port multiplier?) & USB, houses 4 3.5" drives, a single power cable and it shows up as 4 individual drives (on a Win7 machine).

Here's a link to it.

The prices are in CDN, but you can probably find it at Newegg or something for abit cheaper.
 
MrMitch said:
I need on with the following

External
4 or 5 SATA disk
Single Power Cord
Single Data Cable, USB 2 or eSATA, ideally have both

and the biggie, present each disk individually to windows. I want to use it with WHS, and use its drive pool, so I don't want RAID or anything, just kinda pass thru. Cheaper is better but hoping under $150 or so..
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817576009&Tpk=HF2-SU3S2
Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2 3.5" USB3.0 & eSATA 4 Bay External Enclosure
$148
ps. They used to have a USB2/SATA model as well, personally I would just go for USB3/SATA.
 
Yes, that does seem an interesting solution. Actually, a VERY interesting one, since it's the first cheap(ish) enclosure I've seen on the open market that actually supports both eSATA and USB3 capable of exposing all 4 drives individually to the OS...

Do keep in mind you will still need a PM-aware host controller if you plan on using the eSATA interface (check here) for the HDDs to be exposed individually (you'll probably end up with a single HDD being recognized if you're using a non-PM-aware HBA, since "RAID" is nowhere to be found on the enclosure capabilities, which is a standard feature for all of those "PM-agnostic" enclosures).

Btw, in case you're wondering, the only FIS-based switching, PM-aware HBAs I know of are the SiI3132 (2-port SATA2 PCIe 1x) and SiI3124 (4-port SATA2 PCI/PCI-X). JMicron's JMB36x series also supports PMs, but only on the older standard (Command-based switching, which prevents you from accessing more than one drive at a time). Intel's ICH9R is said to also support Command-based switching PMs, but I could never get a clear answer on that one. Lastly, at least based on Wikipedia, AMD's 8xx series of Southbridges should also support FIS-based switching on PMs.

Hmm... Methinks probably my next WHS build will be based off AMD, if that last sentence checks out...
 
__Miguel_ said:
Hmm... Methinks probably my next WHS build will be based off AMD, if that last sentence checks out...
Click to expand...

Why would you base a build off of the ability to use eSATA with port multipliers? eSATA is nowhere near as secure as SFF-8088. Seems like if you know you need more than one 4-5 drive external enclosure ($150) you are basically at the point where a Norco enclosure connected via one or two SFF-8088 cables makes a lot of sense. Seems like compatibility, stability, reliability, ease of management and etc. would be higher up on the list of priorities.
 
pjkenned said:
Why would you base a build off of the ability to use eSATA with port multipliers?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't. I usually couldn't care less about eSATA, it's a MAJOR pain to get the connectors right, then to have all the stuff securely attached all the time. Sure, it can be cool for an external enclosure with one or two drives, as a backup medium or fast external portable storage, but for large amounts of disks you should be thinking about getting either another dedicated machine or higher-grade enclosures and backplanes

However, a uATX motherboard with 6 internal, PM-aware, SATA ports would theoretically be able to fit up to 30 :)eek:) internal drives, which is probably one of the cheapest ways to get a DIY WHS Frankenbuild with that many drives and storage, since 5-port+ HBAs are usually much more expensive than 5-port PMs...

Yes, I know bandwidth sucks with 5 drives hanging off the same SATA port, and 30-drive cases are not that cheap to begin with (though a 20-drive one is rather easy to get, either from Norco or with a 4x5-in-1 adapters on a case with 12 5.25'' bays), and I also know that kind of setup would scream for some kind of SFF-8088 (or variant) setup to keep cable mess down, but you have to admit, sometimes €75 for a port multiplier is easier to handle than €125+ (plus SFF cable) for an 8-port solution...

OK, I'm diverting from the topic. If you want, we can pick this up over PM.
 
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