hot-swap enclosures

[ricksimm]

Can someone please recommend a good hot-swap enclosure- one that mounts inside the server case or external. I am looking for a minimum 4-drive configuration that supports hot-swap and RAID 0,1 5,10. Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry, want to use SATA.

[H2]

I have been looking at one of these, they also have larger sizes. I'm not sure if these have SATA connectors inside. It looks like it would be super simple to use.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822155305

[Xaotic]

RAID functions and hot swap are largely going to be covered by the ability of the controller and enclosure to support them. This combination would work for you:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121913

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816115023

This combination will work and support RAID levels including RAID-5. Though less expensive controllers will support levels not including RAID-5. If you are seeking speed, rather than space utilization, levels other than RAID-5 are better.

The Buffalo enclosures are simple NAS or USB attachment devices, but use PATA drives and are anythin but hot swap.

[ricksimm]

Anybody have any experience with this Apaptec enclosure kit?

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&prodkey=AAR-2410SA_ENCL&language=English+US&cat=Products

appears to be well built and has 90mm fan.

[H2]

Xaotic


RAID functions and hot swap are largely going to be covered by the ability of the controller and enclosure to support them. This combination would work for you:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16817121913

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16816115023

This combination will work and support RAID levels including RAID-5. Though less expensive controllers will support levels not including RAID-5. If you are seeking speed, rather than space utilization, levels other than RAID-5 are better.

That system has SATA which would be very nice because I have several extra drives and making them Hot Swapable.
The only thing I don't like and maybe you have a suggestion is that I'm just about maxed out for power in my PCs now and didn't want to spend another $400+ for a 800+watt power supply.
I thought a self contained unit with its own power supply and fans connecting through my Gigabyte lan would be nice. I could place it 20 feet away for noise control. Alert leds might make it nice to see which drive is failing. I was thinking of using Raid 5 so I would have plenty of room to store 4-6 images of say 60gig or so. Speed isn't a real concern as long as it doesn't slow down my video editing. I'm just going to use the Raid 5 system for Image safety storage with very little accessing it.
Sorry for the long reply.

[ricksimm]

Found the enclosure I might get-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121404

5-drive capacity, 90mm easily replacable cooling fan. hot swap, available in black at other vendors, $120

[H2]

RAID functions and hot swap are largely going to be covered by the ability of the controller and enclosure to support them. This combination would work for you:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16817121913

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16816115023


If I use this setup above for a Raid5 system with 4 300gig hard drive and one of the drives starts making a ticking noise or starts failing how can you tell which drive is giving you the problems. With no indicator leds or lights showing the failing drive.

I was thinking of running this Raid5 system on my built in Silicon Controller on my DFI motherboard, would this be a good idea or should I use a PCI controller.

This Raid5 array won't have my Operating system on it, it will only be for storage of .AVI and MPeg files.

If my motherboard dies in say 3 years and you don't want to buy another DFI motherboard with built in Raid5 controller, have you just lost all the files you have put on the array or will another Raid5 controller work with them.

I don't know how standardized Raid5 is.

[H2]

Ricksimm,

Did you decide yet on any particular enclosure? It sounds like you are looking for about the same type of thing as I am. If I find something outstanding I'll let you know.
Are you going to use a motherboard Raid Controller?

[MVC]

FWIW, I went with two of the 4-drive Athena internal enclosures. Here's a link (http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=4332919&postcount=3) to a pic. I can't yet say how well they work since I'm still building the machine. I finished the wiring a couple of days ago, and the project for this weekend is installing Gentoo so if I don't get sidetracked it should be up and running by Sunday.

[H2]

FYI, I just finished my Raid 10 setup using 4 Maxtor 300gig SATA 16meg buffer drives.
I used my existing case for now and just mounted them in the bottom and I'm using my built in Silicon 3114 Raid Controller. The setup seems to be working great!
I am getting a Average read of 100.6MB/S using HardTac Monitor.
I pulled a drive out of the array and tested the rebuild and it went flawless. I'm excited that this might be the ticket for security and speed.

At first I hadn't loaded the Silicon 3114 Raid5 utility and when a drive was removed I had no way detecting the array was failing, seems simple now once you know!

I tried a Raid 5 Array earlier with the same drives and Controller but the average read was terrible, 14.7MB/S
I had know that it would be slow but man, that's to slow.

[cw823]

I tried a Raid 5 Array earlier with the same drives and Controller but the average read was terrible, 14.7MB/S
I had know that it would be slow but man, that's to slow.


Too slow allright, even with onboard.

[stunt]

H2,
I'm also using raid 10 and It seems the best choice for me also. I'm using 4 80 gig seagates and getting 347mb/s burst and 114mb/s sustained. And It seems pretty secure. And I'm tired of cloning os drives. I had 0, 0+1, and 10. I like the way 10 reverts to raid 1 in case of drive failure instead of 0 like 0+1. 0 was the coolest, just a bit too risky for me.