Need help finding external enclosure

[craigap]

I've been looking into putting together some kind of external storage system for my DVD collection. I was trying to keep it simple by buying 6 or 8 or so, 750GB HDD's and putting them into an external enclosure and then plugging that into the PC. I'm not finding much for enclosures that will do this, however. Can anyone give me some links to some. I found something (can't find it again however) that was an 8 hdd enclosure, but was SCSI, but I couldn't tell if all the HDD's needed to be SCSI or if it was just the connection between the enclosure and the PC. I figured SCSI would be find if I could just put a SCSI PCI card in my PC. Any suggestion would be great.

EDIT: I was just looking at SCSI HDD's on Newegg and didn't find one bigger than 320GB, so I don't know what to think about that. Not gonna get as much storage that way.

[minsonngo]

All I found is one that holds four HDDs here and you connect to your PC via the USB port: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817332008


I suppose you can buy two of them if you want to hold 8 HDDs externally.



Here is one if you want to go eSATA instead of USB... it includes a eSATA PCI-E controller card with the enclosure which you can install in a unoccupied PCI-E slot in your system: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817332013

[kev7555]

I've heard Apricorn recommended here regularly. Google it.

-Kev

[minsonngo]

Originally Posted by kev7555 I've heard Apricorn recommended here regularly. Google it. -Kev

Apricorn is very good in general... but the OP is looking for an enclosure that will hold multiple (he wants one that will hold 6 to 8) hard drives in a single enclosure. Apricorn doesn't have something like that in their product line right now.

[Staren]

That AMS box looks like it might fit the bill if you want to shell out for two of them. In all honesty tho, the easier way to do this might be to put together a cheap little low power mini-tower with enough 3.5 bays to cram HDDs in. If it's going to be networked anyway a basic processor and on-board graphics would be plenty. Just drop a copy of FreeNAS on one of the drives to control everything.

[minsonngo]

Originally Posted by Staren That AMS box looks like it might fit the bill if you want to shell out for two of them. In all honesty tho, the easier way to do this might be to put together a cheap little low power mini-tower with enough 3.5 bays to cram HDDs in. If it's going to be networked anyway a basic processor and on-board graphics would be plenty. Just drop a copy of FreeNAS on one of the drives to control everything.

The NAS is a great idea actually.

Only issue I can think of is heat... but... a few well placed case fans to increase circulation would do the trick.

[Staren]

If you have a router out of the way it's not that big of a problem. Just stick the system in a closet or the corner of a room and you can have as many case fans as needed running and it wouldn't bother you. Just use a chip that runs fairly cool like a ceder mill P4 or Venice AMD X2 to help deal with some of the hard drive heat and you'd be set. It's another option anyway.

[craigap]

I think I need to stay away from the NAS idea because I want it to accessible by Sagetv. I'm fairly certain I can't setup sagetv to access network drives, but I'll have to ask the guys at sagetv.

[minsonngo]

You can ask in their forums too if you are not already a member: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/

[Staren]

I'm not sure about Sage, but I know you can get BeyondTV (Well BeyondMedia, not the actual DVR program) to access network drives. It's a pain but can be done.

[craigap]

I just found out that I can do it with sagetv, so that opens up some more options I guess.

[minsonngo]

Originally Posted by craigap I just found out that I can do it with sagetv, so that opens up some more options I guess.

Thats great news... now you have two options to chose from.

[glc]

If you want that kind of capacity, I'd build a dedicated NAS computer. Here is my choice for a SATA RAID card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816103010

This card performs best in a PCI-X slot, so I'd build around this motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182105

I'd get 8 drives, set 7 up in RAID 5 with the 8th for a hotspare. The array capacity with RAID 5 is total number of active drives minus 1. This would give you 4.5tb with 750gb drives.

[craigap]

So what all would I need to build this?

Case
PSU
HDD controller
Mobo
CPU
RAM
HDD's

OS?

GLC,
Seems it would be much cheaper and easier to just get two of those usb enclosures and 8 hdd's. Why would it be advantageous to build a system like you suggest. Is it solely from a Raid 5 perspective? What if my media library grows past 4.5 TB (which is very likely)?

[minsonngo]

Don't forget the memory... and the video card if the motherboard doesn't have it integrated...

You just need something like FreeNAS which is a standalone Operation System and NAS appliance here: http://www.freenas.org/

[Staren]

The thing is that when you get into that much data, you DO NOT want to lose all that work. That's when raid really becomes useful. With raid 5 you can survive a single drive failure. If back up isn't an issue (you really don't mind loading all those DVDs back in, and boy I would) then you can of course just use multiple drives for storage in which case it would be a lot cheaper because an add-on card to just add 2 or 3 more sata ports is $20 as opposed to $400...but that's if backup isn't a problem for you.

[glc]

I built 2 boxes as I described for a customer and used Win2K Pro.

If you do want the simplicity of an external array for an existing computer, look at Addonics. They are the leader in such devices. Check their "Storage Tower/RAID System" offerings. They have 5 drive eSATA enclosures with hardware port multipliers - connects 5 drives to a single eSATA connector.

[craigap]

How low budget can I go on the RAM and CPU if I use the FreeNAS program or Win2K with this setup? 256MB/cheapest intel/AMD I can buy?

Edit: Also, does the OS need to be put on a seperate partion that then gets spread out on the Array?

[glc]

If you build a computer, I'd personally put the OS on a dedicated drive on the motherboard controller. With that motherboard, I'd use a 1gb dual channel ram kit and a Cedar Mill Pentium-4, probably a 631. The processor is about 70 bucks and the ram is about 40.

[craigap]

GLC,

Is that raid card you suggested support multiple cards in case I need to expand, or would I have to build another system, or would I set up two seperate raid arrays if I used two cards on one mobo. I anticipate needing more than 4.5TB so I'd like to incorporate some expaniblility. Or should I go with one of the 12 or 16 sata drive raid cards I noticed. I anticipate eventually using upto about 7-8TB. maybe more as I get more movies. Not to mention all the TV shows I would store.

[glc]

Adaptec does have a 16 drive SATA RAID card - I would go with that. You can add drives to a RAID 5 at any time and expand the array. Have fun finding a case that will hold that many drives though - and when you expand you should use identical drives.

[craigap]

I was looking at this http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811112109

with maybe something like this

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817995001

in it.

Or something like this
http://rackmountmart.stores.yahoo.ne...racchaso1.html
with 17 3.5" bays: 16 raid, 1 for OS

Is there much of a difference in using a PCI-X card vs a PCIe x8 card for a Raid Controller.