DIY: Sata Hot-Swap

[knowledgegranted]

Hey,

Like many others I find my self having 6 Hardrives FULL of Movies, Music, and well TV Shows. All of which I listen to, watch and learn. Yes I even watched those old star-trek Shows on the way to Canada yesterday.

But anyways to the topic of this thread: I went onto newegg and saw that a decent Sata hot-swap with 3 bays its around $139. Something I'm definitely NOT gonna spend my money towards. Has anyone really built one themself? Or does someone own one (commercially made) that can explain A little bit about the software they use to runs these.

What really would it require to get such a task built? Seeing as its and external 3.5" HDD it really can't be that hard...

Any help would be great, its going towards Widow Maker :D
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[OvRiDe]

you could look at somthing like a SATA dock.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066

http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Sata-HDD-Docking-Station/dp/B0012Z3MKW/ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_0

Here is a review on one.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2267

[knowledgegranted]

I was looking more along the lines of actually building one myself, but a great Idea. Maybe I can buy 3 and mod it into one thing to fit into the PC, then again it hits the $100 range.
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[billygoat333]

isn't someone currently doing a mod like this on the site? Let me search it...

EDIT:http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18649


is this kind of what you were thinking?

[p0Pe]

yeah:D thats mee! just need to make an outer shell for it.

i can recoment doing the same. or just bying the dock if you dont want to mod it:) great speeds and you can hook it up with e-sata. saves you the money in electricity, and the space in your case. also boosts the lifetime of your drives.

and why would you need 3? you probertly wont be using 3 drives at the same time if they are storage drives for movies etc. and you could just have it external instead of inside the case.

[knowledgegranted]

Yeah, I probably would be using 3 Drives at once. Its going into a HTPC and Widowmaker. So I would be streaming off of the harddrives to elsewhere within my house. Internal is a big thing for me right now, I have way to much on my desk already.

Thanks for the Info! I might be using that dock now that you say that, juts mod it in somehow.
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[crazybillybob]

Did some looking for you... best I can find for 3 Drives is this
startech.com 3 Drive Tray Less SATA Hot Swap Enclosure (http://www.startech.com/item-specs/HSB320SATBK-3-Drive-Tray-Less-SATA-Hot-Swap-Enclosure.aspx)


Best price I could find (from a reputable dealer)
$81.24 at buy.com (http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com-3-drive-tray-less-sata-hot-swap-mobile-rack-storage/q/loc/101/204166879.html?dcaid=15890)

It's designed to be mounted in the front of a case so takes 3 sata cables to run the drives.... but if you pick up some long sata cables, and a couple of these
Serial ATA Data Power Internal to External Slot Plate (http://www.startech.com/item/SATAPOWPLAT1-1-ft-Serial-ATA-Data-Power-Internal-to-External-Slot-Plate.aspx)you should be good to go.

or you could hack in some SATA to USB 2.0 adpters...but if your streaming the sata is faster.



CBB

[fragged]

I had this problem to; aside from what you've mentioned I found it to be a bad heat generator in my room during summer and a bit of a waste of power, I eventually got an old PC, a SATA PCI card, and a gigabit network card; hooked up all the drives and installed Linux on a minimal (10gb) partition. I use Wake-On-Lan to wake the PC up, SAMBA to share files to myself, and other members of my family, and SSH to shut it down - works a charm, and doesnt require messing around with drives etc.

[knowledgegranted]

I had this problem to; aside from what you've mentioned I found it to be a bad heat generator in my room during summer and a bit of a waste of power, I eventually got an old PC, a SATA PCI card, and a gigabit network card; hooked up all the drives and installed Linux on a minimal (10gb) partition. I use Wake-On-Lan to wake the PC up, SAMBA to share files to myself, and other members of my family, and SSH to shut it down - works a charm, and doesnt require messing around with drives etc.


That is a sick idea, but it would be too easy. I'm one of those people that likes to make things as complex as possible just to get pissed off and throw the thing out the window. :banana:



I might just use your method though...

[crazybillybob]

If your going the stand alone server style for the drives check out this article from MaximumPc's website (last week?) freeware files make most your spare storage five freeware servers (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/freeware_files_make_most_your_spare_storage_five_f reeware_servers)

Might give you some more Ideas or os builds to try :)

(I've got some thing like this on my network too... works great, and if you have it setup right Itunes will see all the media you store there... makes it easy for Wives/Girlfriends/mothers/sisters/brothers/roommates/etc that are not tech savvy to find the stuff they want!)

CBB

[Drum Thumper]

If your going the stand alone server style for the drives check out this article from MaximumPc's website (last week?) freeware files make most your spare storage five freeware servers (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/freeware_files_make_most_your_spare_storage_five_f reeware_servers)

Might give you some more Ideas or os builds to try :)

(I've got some thing like this on my network too... works great, and if you have it setup right Itunes will see all the media you store there... makes it easy for Wives/Girlfriends/mothers/sisters/brothers/roommates/etc that are not tech savvy to find the stuff they want!)

CBB

I'll be honest, I haven't checked the link yet, but the last thing I got from a Max PC article was not the best advice--they failed to mention that one needed a previous generation Linksys router to run tomato.

Personally, I am running Ubuntu with a Samba share for streaming. PM me for the gory details.