I have the list of disk serial numbers and what position it occupies which makes it really easy to locate. Megaraid storage manager shows the serial numbers so I can see which one is missing and locate it quickly. Sure, it’s not as quick as a backplane with disk id and failure lights and unplugging the connections whilst it’s running isn’t wise but it beats having cheap backplanes go bad. I don’t mind a bit of downtime as the storage array is not something that needs to be permanently accessible. It simply holds one of three copies of very important files, temporary space for re-encoding work and a Plex media library.Thanks but I#m sorry to say I made the same mistake as you many years ago. Desktop with lots of hdds. Was impossible to swap out disks as I hadn't labelled them. And could not hotswap. now I have a small Dell R610 which is much easier to look after,
The problem with proper servers was cost, disk quantity, power consumption and without doubt, noise. I did consider a NetApp DS4246 Disk shelf type arrangement using external cables but it’s quite an expensive way to go and it’s a second case to store.