Need some tech help with my little esata box

TooManyPCs · 8 Feb 2010 at 16:24

Hi folks.

A while ago I built myself a 4TB esata storage device.

I built it from:

1 x CD duplicator case (5 bay with 200W PSU).

1 x eSATA Port Multiplier Bridge Board (5 sata ports).

1 x DVD RW drive.

4 x HDD Caddies (each caddy hold a 1TB HDD)

The reason I buit this beast, was because my system does have any drive bays available due to a due to a dual loop, dual pump, water cooling setup. The system drives are a couple SSDs, the esata box is for storage only. It is a good setup and means I'm not using power-hungry HDDs under normal use. The system does have 300GB 2 1/2 drive for system backups. I hope to remove this from my system when I am happy with the esata box. The only reason I'm not happy with the esata box is that when I switch it on, all four HDDs spin up. It is unlikely that I'd want to use all four drives at the same.

The are a few ways of stopping all four drives running:

1. The very manual method. Pull the unwanted HDD caddies out. This was my original method. This got annoying after a while.

2. The slightly manual method. Fit push buttons to the case. The buttons would be wired to relay that would let me switch of each HDD individually. I fitted switches and built a cicuit out of euroboard. There was a flaw in my circuit design, I forgot to put in some diodes. Without the diodes the PSU looped back to itself and would auto-power off. Any easy fix, but then I came up with another idea - see method 3.

3. The software controlled method. The are quite a few USB operated relay boards on the market. The USB method would let me switch HDDs on or off at a mouse click.

With method 3 in mind, I'm looking for some tech advice.

Q1 - The sata power connectection. 4 wires, 1 yellow (12 volts), 1 red (5 volts) and 2 black (grounds). To safely switch on/off a HDD is it necessary to switch on/off both the 12 volt and the 5 volt supplies?

I hoping that using just switching the 12 volt would be enough. Then I could use a single pole relay USB board. Otherwise it's double pole.

Q2 - Can anyone recommend a good USB relay board for my little project?

The board would need to have at least 5 relays. Four for the HDDs and one to switch the PSU on/off. A sixth relay for switching the DVD RW drive on/off isn't that important, but would give me total control over the esata box.

TooMany Thanks in advance.

PS - Sorry to Admin, for posting this topic in the Gen Hardware and the HDD sections, not sure where it should really go.

JonJ678 · 8 Feb 2010 at 17:17

At the risk of asking a silly question, can't windows spin hard drives down on command? So let them all spin up, then switch them off again.

The approach I took for a while with four internal sata drives was to let them all spin up during post, then as soon as ubuntu loaded a command from /etc/rc.local spun them down again. I think I used sdparm. Found a script which checked to see if they were active every 15 minutes or so and spun then down if not, but this became tedious so I resorted to a batch file named "silence" which when run would spin down the hard drives and turn some fans off.

TooManyPCs · 8 Feb 2010 at 18:59

Hi Jon, thanks for the reply.

First off, I am a M$ Windows man, so far. I have 'played' with linux, but I'm not ready to covert/dual boot just yet.

Before I went down 'hard wired' route my research led me to believe that Windows could not spin down/spin up HDDs at will, and not on an individual HDD basis. So now you've made me think. I'd have to go back and do some checking. I built this little box about a year ago so can't remember all the details. Hadn't bothered with the box much until recently. Some heavy usage got me interested again.

There are somethings I missed in my first post. The USB relay board would have to be at least 5 relays. I would need one for switching the esata box PSU on/off. I certainly cant do that in Windows without some circuitry involved.

Another reason, is noise from the hard disk caddies. When the box is on and all 4 caddies are inserted, there is a lot of noise. All 4 caddies have 40mm cooling fans which I cant disconnect or the caddy starts beeping at me. I wouldn't disconnect the fans anyway, do not want any drive failures due to over-heats.

I knew there was at least one reason to go down the relay route. Will edit my first post

The USB board will have to stay, unless someone knows a better solution.

Thanks Jon, you got me thinking. I wouldn't remembered otherwise. It slowly coming back now.

JonJ678 · 8 Feb 2010 at 19:13

As a simpler alternative to the circuitry you could run a couple of meters of cable between the box and the psu, four wires at reasonably heavy guage, and solder a molex plug onto one end. You've got an esata lead joining them together anyway, so may as well drop the 200W built in psu and power it from your main computer (unless it's shared with other machines?). This would simplify turning it off.

Not sure what you can do about the fans. I'm sure you can jury rig the caddy to stop beeping, but overheating may well be an issue. Can you fit a single larger fan to draw air over all of them? Four 40mm fans can't be quiet

It's quite possible that windows can't turn them off through software, though a bit of a poor show if it can't.

Good idea by the way, moving hard drives an optical drive out of the case and using esata. I'd like to do something similar with ethernet when I get the time, have a feeling e-sata would actually be simpler.

TooManyPCs · 8 Feb 2010 at 20:28

Can't remove or link out the 40mm fans.The caddies are not your average caddies. They have they're own LCDs (for displaying temp, status etc), a circuit board and so on. You can set the alarm temp. Definately not basic.

Check out this:

http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/157

(Will post a pic of my esata box fully powered up, if I can find my camera)

Removing the fans is really not an option.

With regards you're power supply idea. I did originally consider an item from ******. Essentially a card slot blanking plate with a molex connector built-in. I'd give you a link but can't find it ATM.

I would like to keep hold of the PSU. I may eventually take out the port multiplier and replace with and ITX motherboard. Yes, that's right, turn it into a media server.

TooManyPCs · 8 Feb 2010 at 20:57

Here's a couple of quick pics.

Sparky__H · 8 Feb 2010 at 21:44

Have you tried plugging the HDD directly into the sata cables rather then the Hot Swap caddie. It could be interfering with the spin down cycle.

TooManyPCs · 8 Feb 2010 at 22:51

Sparky__H said:
Have you tried plugging the HDD directly into the sata cables rather then the Hot Swap caddie. It could be interfering with the spin down cycle.

The spin doesn't matter. You might be missing the point. 4 x 40mm fans and 1 x 80mm fan in the PSU, regardless if the HDDs are spinning or not, is very noisy.

Fully switching on/off the wouldn't do any harm to the HDDs. It would just be using their hot swap capability. And it would greener, no power used at all if the HDD was off.