Raid or....?

godinman · 6 Sep 2012 at 13:42

Hi All,

Got a bit of a problem, I have 6 x 2tb HDD's which I want to connect to a PC, there is no internal room. I want them to come up as individual HDD's, or at least I don't want 1 faulty drive to be able to destroy the array. I also don't want to have to double up HDD's etc.

What would be the best was of doing this? I have 2 x eSata ports, I don't want to use usb as it is too slow./unreliable.

Any thoughts? I basically want the drives to come up as if they were plugged into the MB on individual satas, but outside the PC and preferably in a single/two boxes.

Cheers.

Hagar · 6 Sep 2012 at 13:46

What about a NAS on a gigabit Lan card. You can access them from any attached PC, Lan or wireless or internet.

geuben · 6 Sep 2012 at 13:47

Look for a multibay SATA to eSATA enclosure. There are some 4 bay ones available. These make use of a port multiplier. They are usually faster than USB but not as fast as plugging each drive into a dedicated port.

They range from about £110 - £300+

godinman · 6 Sep 2012 at 13:59

Thanks for that, Gueben, so would this appear on the PC as individual disks? Could you maybe point me at a particular brand/model?

geuben · 6 Sep 2012 at 14:01

godinman said:
Thanks for that, Gueben, so would this appear on the PC as individual disks? Could you maybe point me at a particular brand/model?

Depends how you configure them. You can usually choose RAID(0,1,5 etc) or JBOD which is what you would want.

I know Startech make a 4 bay one that around £200-£230, ICYBox make one that is a little cheaper. There is one that is more like £130, not sure of the brand...might be TeraBox

godinman · 6 Sep 2012 at 14:45

Thanks dude, I've found an Icy Dock one, looks perfect.