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Storage solution?

P

pickxx

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
154
I have been looking around for a way to add more space, for obvious reasons, and everything seems too exspensive or just plain stupid. I dont want to be that guy who has 15 external HDD's hooked up to a bunch of USB slots. I just thought of this idea....and i dont know if anyone has any thoughts on this....

If i take a cheap PCI card that has an external multilane connection (Example here.....the PCI one) I could just get a super cheap case and have it sit next to my main tower and i could run THIS through a PCI slot in the back and conntect to some drives sitting in the other rig. I would get another cheap PSU, cheap as in price not quality, and i could use a slave PSU switch like THIS in the 2nd tower to run the drives.


In my mind this is just like building a cheap one of these


I have a couple of Questions though....
1. that card is $50, and the next cheapest PCI card with an external Multilane connection is $299. I haven't looked everywhere but i want to know if that isn't what i am looking for, or something so cheap and crappy that its horrible.

2. I am thinking about using just that multilane fanout cable, but is it better to use this and this Because using just the fanout cable is cheaper, and i dont see any upside of using the backplate and a more exspensive cable.

3. Anything i am missing about this? anyone tryed this?



Thanx everyone, i just dont see the point to buy a storage tower from that place when i can use a case, and have more room for WAY more storage and i can control the PSU, fans, and connections myself.
 
Do you have enough spare computer parts too put another computer together just for storage?

I'm planning on doing this soon, probably with a coolermaster stacker a 3700+ and something like 12x250gb hard drives.
 
underdone said:
Do you have enough spare computer parts too put another computer together just for storage?

I'm planning on doing this soon, probably with a coolermaster stacker a 3700+ and something like 12x250gb hard drives.
Click to expand...

I think you missed the point.

I would love to setup a nice RAID5 in a stacker and just migrate my system to it.....BUT the RAID cards are exspensive....for the cost of just the RAID card you would be using i could have 2TB of JOBD's. And i dont have a PCIe slot, so that limits what i can buy for a RAID card without upgrading my motherboard.


What i am asking about is more like building a big external HDD enclosure...i have seen them around but they are ugly and i could build my own with that i have already.....plus a few small parts.
 
the disadvantage of that fanout cable is that you either have to:
Either disconnect 4 calbes at the back of the second case whenever you need to move it and use two of something like this
OR open the second case and disconnect four cables at HDDs whenver you want ot move it.

Honestly, if you are not planning to ever move this, a fanout cable could be a good idea, but make sure you know whether the terminating cables are eSATA or internal Sata...
 
pickxx said:
I would love to setup a nice RAID5 in a stacker and just migrate my system to it.....BUT the RAID cards are exspensive....for the cost of just the RAID card you would be using i could have 2TB of JOBD's. And i dont have a PCIe slot, so that limits what i can buy for a RAID card without upgrading my motherboard.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about buying the expensive raid cards, they're like $200 which is way too much. I meant some of the cheaper 4 port cards and then using software raid.
 
drizzt81 said:
Honestly, if you are not planning to ever move this, a fanout cable could be a good idea, but make sure you know whether the terminating cables are eSATA or internal Sata...
Click to expand...


My computer isn't going ANYWHERE.....and if i do need to move it i dont mind disconnectiong the drives from insdie the case.


But what do you mean about the terminating cables? THe one i linked to is Multilane on one end and fans out to internal SATA on the other. Am i missing what you're saying? or did you miss what i was saying? I am kinda lost.
 
He means whether the cables on the end of the cable that isn't in your computer are eSATA connectors or internal SATA connectors. It makes a difference, I'd assume.

I'm currently running linux software raid, and apart from it being slow due to buggy drivers for the card I'm using, it works fine - it's only connected with 100mbit so the ~50mb/s it gets is enough.

the black knight always triumphs!
 
rogue_jedi said:
He means whether the cables on the end of the cable that isn't in your computer are eSATA connectors or internal SATA connectors. It makes a difference, I'd assume.

I'm currently running linux software raid, and apart from it being slow due to buggy drivers for the card I'm using, it works fine - it's only connected with 100mbit so the ~50mb/s it gets is enough.
Click to expand...

See thats the thing.....i am not ruynning software raid, i am just trying to make an external HDD case. It will be in a tower and have its own PSU, but will have no cpu, mobo, ram, or anything like that in the 2nd case.....just cables going from one to the next.



Anyone have any ideas on the quality of that PCI card??
 
The sil3114 is universally supported. There shouldn't be any problem using it under any OS you choose.

 
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