rack storage for multiple 2.5-inch SATA drives?
OK, it's all foggy and pissy with rain outside, and cold. Motorcycling is a pretty abstract concept on days like this. Restless minds turn to other things.
Like what to do with the stack of six or seven 2.5-inch SATA hard drives that I've accumulated in recent years, typically when the drive in my laptop maxes out and the price on a 250G or 320G or 500G drive has dropped to 1/4 what it was a year ago.
Am I being stupid to think, "Why not mount them all up in a single rack with its own power supply, and use them for backup storage?"
I've googled around, and found only one device that holds more than one 2.5-inch drive; it allows you to squeeze these two drives into a single standard bay in a desktop computer. What I'm looking for is a little mini-tower with maybe 8 or 10 bays, which would connect to my laptop with a single USB cable.
I can't be the only one with this problem. Any ideas?
thanks!
:clap::clap::clap:
Re: rack storage for multiple 2.5-inch SATA drives?
Sounds like what you want is a "Drobo" but they're kind of silly expensive. What kind of interface are the drives? Are they all SATA or do you have some old IDE ones in there? You might buy a couple of external USB docks for the drives, then hook up the drives to an external USB hub. That should give you access to all the drives from one machine. You'll want the Drobo or something similar if you're looking to do a RAID setup though. I have an external USB dock that allows me to plug in two SATA HDs and then access them like a normal drive plugged right in to the puter. I have 3 extra HDs siting around that I can just swap in and out easily. Here's a linky.
Re: rack storage for multiple 2.5-inch SATA drives?
Don't know why you can't find one, maybe terminology?
Easy enough to find a NAS enclosure/rack cabinet in a Shanghai computer market I am sure - for a fraction of the cost it would be in USA. Where are you at the moment?
Do you understand networking and storage setups? All the 'raids' etc and how they work?
http://gizmodo.com/5203952/giz-expla...y-you-want-one
Cheaper enclosures may not have spindown and sleep/wakeup and other handy things like quiet fans,
You can just use an old computer tower with the old computer still in it as controller and set up linux freenas but its quite a learning curve. I gave up and got a 1TB HD which will last me for years I reckon, and now you can get 2TB! I admire your courage.
What do you actually want it for Jeff? Media center, storage, automatic backup, all of them?
Re: rack storage for multiple 2.5-inch SATA drives?
Jape, Nuhaus -- thanks guys. Lots of good info here. I'd not heard this term NAS, or network array storage. Yes, China's gadget markets are chockablock with single-drive enclosures that turn your surplus HD into a spiffy USB drive. But now I have a stack of at least six of these, and would like to try to get them all into a single enclosure so as to increase their utility. Ideally, these would all be readable via a single USB connection.
I already have a backup system -- Apple's 1TB Time Capsule -- so I'm reasonably confident that if my Macbook HD dies, I'll not have lost anything. But my Macbook HD is "only" 500GB, and I'm reluctant to carry all of my pictures, music and videos on that drive. So, yes, I guess I'm thinking of developing this NAS as a media center, where I can catalog lots of pix, and not worry too much about losing them. Would a "media center" by definition need to have a CPU at its heart, or can it just be an array of storage that you plug into as needed? And would it be possible to access the data remotely via the web? I do know that the Time Capsule can also accommodate an external HD via USB connection.
Maybe I'm just being cheap, and hate to see all those gigabytes of storage go to waste. After all, I remember when my PC only had 20MB of storage, and that was the largest available!
Then again, maybe these surplus HDs are now just so much cybertrash, and should be sent off to the recycler.
cheers
Re: rack storage for multiple 2.5-inch SATA drives?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
euphonius
Jape, Nuhaus -- thanks guys. Lots of good info here. I'd not heard this term NAS, or network array storage. Yes, China's gadget markets are chockablock with single-drive enclosures that turn your surplus HD into a spiffy USB drive. But now I have a stack of at least six of these, and would like to try to get them all into a single enclosure so as to increase their utility. Ideally, these would all be readable via a single USB connection.
I already have a backup system -- Apple's 1TB Time Capsule -- so I'm reasonably confident that if my Macbook HD dies, I'll not have lost anything. But my Macbook HD is "only" 500GB, and I'm reluctant to carry all of my pictures, music and videos on that drive. So, yes, I guess I'm thinking of developing this NAS as a media center, where I can catalog lots of pix, and not worry too much about losing them. Would a "media center" by definition need to have a CPU at its heart, or can it just be an array of storage that you plug into as needed? And would it be possible to access the data remotely via the web? I do know that the Time Capsule can also accommodate an external HD via USB connection.
Maybe I'm just being cheap, and hate to see all those gigabytes of storage go to waste. After all, I remember when my PC only had 20MB of storage, and that was the largest available!
Then again, maybe these surplus HDs are now just so much cybertrash, and should be sent off to the recycler.
cheers
Your media center will need a CPU to coordinate the hardware and to handle access to it. Make your own NAS. The VIA NAS 7800 should do that nicely but it is a dyi solution, managing 8 SATA plus 6 USB drives for you. Also it would work through Gigabit LAN and once connected to your WLAN router you have wireless access to it as well. With a bit more software efforts (usually free stuff) you should be able to gain remote access through the web from just about anywhere.
However, using your old harddrives isn't without risk. Particularly when they came off a notebook they have been physically stressed and I wouldn't store my important data on these.
As save backup units I am using a 2TB Western Digital My Book and several 500GB Buffalo NAS, all in RAID 1. My most important data go encrypted to the cloud as well. I traded in all my old HDD's after having them low level formatted, some for good cash - just need to wait a while until real old stuff increases it's value :naughty:
For me: get rid of old hdds, invest in new backup hdds - no DVDs, Blue Rays, Flash memory or the like.
Btw, it's all worth nothing with out a good backup software :thumbsup:
Re: rack storage for multiple 2.5-inch SATA drives?
