external storage

[Bob S]

My case has no more drive slots, the drives it has are already large,
and I want another 500GB or more of storage.

In the past I have used Samsung PATA drives in BYTECC USB2 external
cases. I was going to do that again, but it looks like large (500GB)
PATA drives are a scarce item and SATA is the way to go. So that got
me thinking about what to do.

The only spare PC box that I have has no monitor and no SATA and
limited drive slots, so making my own server would probably mean just
buying a new PC system. It seems like overkill, although I suppose it
might have some advantages like good cooling and RAID mirroring.

The PC I use has internal SATA but not external. In fact it has a SATA
RAID controller. Maybe there is a reasonable way to get the SATA out
of the box. I suppose there are simple external SATA boxes; does
anyone have a particular recommendation?

I suppose that if I could run the SATA out to external boxes I might
be able to use the PC's RAID facility, but I am not at all sure how
the system will respond to having the external drives not always
available to the internal controller!

Maybe there are external SATA RAID mirroring boxes that don't cost too
much; Any specific recommendations?

Or does anyone have recommendations on a good plain old SATA drive to
UBS2 external box?

Bob S

 

[Arno Wagner]

My case has no more drive slots, the drives it has are already large,
and I want another 500GB or more of storage.

In the past I have used Samsung PATA drives in BYTECC USB2 external
cases. I was going to do that again, but it looks like large (500GB)
PATA drives are a scarce item and SATA is the way to go. So that got
me thinking about what to do.

The only spare PC box that I have has no monitor and no SATA and
limited drive slots, so making my own server would probably mean just
buying a new PC system. It seems like overkill, although I suppose it
might have some advantages like good cooling and RAID mirroring.

The PC I use has internal SATA but not external. In fact it has a SATA
RAID controller. Maybe there is a reasonable way to get the SATA out
of the box. I suppose there are simple external SATA boxes; does
anyone have a particular recommendation?

I suppose that if I could run the SATA out to external boxes I might
be able to use the PC's RAID facility, but I am not at all sure how
the system will respond to having the external drives not always
available to the internal controller!

Maybe there are external SATA RAID mirroring boxes that don't cost too
much; Any specific recommendations?

Or does anyone have recommendations on a good plain old SATA drive to
UBS2 external box?

I use two Revoltec Alu Book 2 3.5" with Samsung 500GB SATA drives.

See my brief review here: http://tinyurl.com/2vxcgc

These things have eSATA and USB2 and are cooled well enough with
Samsung drives.

Arno

 

[novmber]

good point from your review i never though of :-

A definite advantage is the additional eSATA interface. If allows
fast access and SMART monitoring and testing without removing
the disk from the enclosure.

 

[Arno Wagner]

good point from your review i never though of :-

A definite advantage is the additional eSATA interface. If allows
fast access and SMART monitoring and testing without removing
the disk from the enclosure.

Exactly. I think that periodically removinf the drives physically
from a case is a pretty high risk and a lot of effort. Better
to have eSATA in there, even if used ordinarily via USB.

Arno