Can this be done?

wonder_lander

wonder_lander

wonder_lander

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Stone, Staffordshire
Scenario is the following.

I am currently running 2 PC's 24/7 in my garage. One is my WHS box (HP ML115) and the other is an old Dell Optiplex 4200 (P4 2.8).

The Dell box runs my bird-cam but being based on a 2003 PC I think it's probably incredibly inefficient.

I also use a second hard drive in the Dell box and use crashplan to copy data from my WHS to it for backup purposes.

The problem now is that the WHS machine only has 4 x internal 3.5 drive bays and I'm using them all.

I'd like to look at replacing the Dell with a more efficient setup (preferably cheap from MM) and was pondering the following:

1) If I housed it all in a large tower case with lots of drive bays could I get some components that would allow me to put an esata port multiplier into the HP connect it the drives in the new box?

2) Anyone recommend a cheap case with a decent amount of 3.5" bays (say 8 minimum)

3) What combo of mobo / processor should I look at getting from MM, it will have low work so efficency is the key.

4) Let's say I put 8 HD's into the case what would be a suitable PSU, again looking MM so not too cutting edge!
 
I would say that a core duo CPU would be the best from the MM, get a low power comsumption one like a E4500 or similir or if you wanted to go down to it a E2-series or similir. They are reasonably powerful and have high effeciency.

With just cpu, mobo, ram and no gfx card with another card with 8 HDDs I would say 300W would be enough but 400W to be safe and for startup with that amount of HDDs.
 
geowal19 said:
I would say that a core duo CPU would be the best from the MM, get a low power comsumption one like a E4500 or similir or if you wanted to go down to it a E2-series or similir. They are reasonably powerful and have high effeciency.

With just cpu, mobo, ram and no gfx card with another card with 8 HDDs I would say 300W would be enough but 400W to be safe and for startup with that amount of HDDs.
Click to expand...

Cheers for that, thoughts on a case and how I could connect the drives in this new install into an esata port multiplier? I case I need some form of backplane on the drives but not sure what's the best route!
 
Cheers for that, thoughts on a case and how I could connect the drives in this new install into an esata port multiplier?
Click to expand...

Hmm the case i would agree with biz.kid. Do you want the drives in another case and have the windows install on one of the drives for the core2 rig?
 
The idea would be 1 HD in the core2 rig has windows XP installed on it and has access to the local hardware etc.

The other 7 drives are then magically connected by a myriad of components that I have no idea about and data cable(s) running out of a spare card slot at the rear of the case and into an esata port multiplier on the HP WHS. (Power for the 7 drives will come from the core2rig)
 
It might just be me but i dont understand exactly what you want?
You want a pc that has space for 8 hdds? that can also be connected to your WHS?
or something completely different?
 
With my HP Server at capacity the most logical thing would be to add an external DAS unit like the EdgeStore ones.

This got me thinking about the poor efficiency of my other PC and so to kill 2 birds with 1 stone I'm looking 1 tower case holding in effect a replacement for the PC and an alternative to a dedicated DAS unit.

Does that make sense?
 
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