Hardware for a mass HDD multi-socket hotswappable server

Cerulean

Cerulean

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Let me put this into a perspective: pretend this is a classroom/hypothetical scenario. A friend and I want to start a company specializing in the secure formatting of harddisks. We want to build a server that has a lot of hotswappable bays for customer harddisks, and supports multiple sockets (IDE/PATA, SATA, SCSI, etcetera). Using VirtualBox, we want to be able to pop in a customer harddisk mount it into one of many virtual machine clones, boot to an ISO of Ultimate Boot CD, and use ViVard/TestDisk/dban/PartedMagic on the customer disk.

My question here is regarding the 'hotswapping ability', multiple socket types, and recommended hardware for a mass dynamic job like this. Perhaps each server can support up to 16 harddisks or whatever.

Is the hotswapping ability possible?
There are bays for different sockets, I know this, but would it all be hot swappable?
(Will also have to factor in the IDE's way of functioning, yes? :X )


In other words, I want to build a server that can carry out this function with 8 to 16 HDDs simultaneous minimum). Not sure where or how to start; don't think about budget though, but but realistic.
 
Bump (to make sure this thread is noticed). Thanks to BlindedByScience for the thread move. :D
 
First off, look at the CPU utilization for whatever secure erase you want to do. Figure out the interval that one would swap disks out at. That would give you an idea of how many CPUs you need.
Second, multiple sockets... I would personally make one machine with SAS backplanes. They work with SATA also so for the past few years they would accept most drives made.

SCSI there are tons of variants. You'll need appropriate controllers and ribbon cables for each pre-sas type.

IDE - Hotswap is usually :-( here. Plus lots of ribbons and low port counts. What you'd basically do is USB enclosure things then have to pass those through.

Look at Intel, Supermicro, ASUS and Tyan for dual socket motherboards. There may be a case for running multiple systems.

Just some thoughts.
 
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