Big Rig

[ace2109]

Hi guys i want to put together a large tower that i can put a load of Hard drives into.

Can you guys spec me something???

It must have six Seagate Barracuda ES 500GB ST3500630NS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM from OCUK, with the potential for more in the future.

The system will be running win2k3 server, but it does not need to be big on memory at the minute.

regards
ace

 

[BillytheImpaler]

How many is a load of disks? Is 12 enough? Do you need the host cards for the disks as well?

 

[ace2109]

12 would be plenty to allow for future disks

 

[BillytheImpaler]

How's this look?:

The case is monstrous, with space for 12 HDDs in the lower rack. With EX-33s added you could fit another 6 disks in the front if you wanted. The PSU is probably overkill unless you've got some really wicked 15k RPM SAS disks.

 

[ace2109]

how can that motherboard support 12 hard drives

 

[BillytheImpaler]

You'll have to use a host card or two, that's why I asked about it in my original response. I can't think of any consumer motherboards with 12+ SATA ports.

 

[ace2109]

are the contoller card reliable enough????

 

[BillytheImpaler]

They are reliable but I don't know enough to recommend one card over another other than by raw numbers. A lot of it depends on how much you're willing to spend. I take it you don't need RAID functionality, right?

 

[ace2109]

dont need raid at all just the function to add more cards

 

[ace2109]

Will this work?

I have my own motherboard to add to it.

Lian Li PC-A10A Aluminium Full-Tower - Silver £128.99
(£151.56) £128.99
(£151.56)
Adaptec AAR-1420SA 4-Port SATA-II RAID Controller Adaptec AAR-1420SA 4-Port SATA-II RAID Controller £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Seagate Barracuda ES 500GB ST3500630NS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM Seagate Barracuda ES 500GB ST3500630NS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £68.99
(£81.06) £413.94
(£486.36)

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Yes, assuming you have enough SATA ports for them all.

Also, I don't know how you intend on shoehorning all the disks into that case. it might be wiser to choose a case that accommodates only one PSU and more hard disks such as the one I mentioned above.