External Raid Solution

[oplin]

Currently have a internal raid solution 10x 500gig drives and still want to keep that but want a solution i can upgrade easier and not worry about space in the case. Basically looking for a card around a grand and preferably from Areca. Would like to use SATA II drives and be able to support 10-100 drives or so externally. Pretty sure this is possible through SAS expanders and the right card and enclosures. If anybody can post a few full setups (Card, cables, and enclosures, expanders, etc) that would be great. Thanks.

 

[unhappy_mage]

You can take a look at the Supermicro 933e1 case, or Xtore's products. I hear Promise makes JBODs too.

 

[oplin]

With those cases can you use them just to house the drives or do you need mobo and stuff in there for the SAS expander to work or do what it does? And thanks for the links, was hoping to do something non rack mountable but i'm guessing that is not going to be possible.

 

[unhappy_mage]

IIRC they sell a little board with circuitry on it that'll trick the power supply into behaving right. Only with the Supermicro cases is this an issue; the others are designed to be solely disk chassis.

I've only seen one expander card (the Chenbro CK12801) that would work in a standard PCI slot. It'd be nice if more people made them.