[OpenIndiana-discuss] Cram more drives into an HP xw8600

[Philip Robar]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Nikola M. <minikola at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 07/23/14 08:34 PM, Philip Robar wrote:
>
>> If you don't mind a mini rack sitting outside of your case this is an
>> inexpensive ($30) option:
>>
>> http://www.sansdigital.com/storage-gadgets/hddrack5.html
>
>
>>  Huh, I think that is for mounting Inside the case, not outside,
>

No, it's explicitly meant to be used outside of the computer's case. I've
actually seen this product in person.


> and to use same power supply from the case.
>

No, if you'd actually read the description you'd know that is uses the 20
or 24 pin ATX cable from a separate power supply to power the drives and
that it has it's own on/off switch.

It would be not practical to mount anything outside the case, since you
> need as much SATA cables from the controller, as drives you have. And using
> SATA extenders is NOT advisable, due to unknown affects that chips inside
> extender have on data flow (unless it is all SAS drives because SAS is
> another thing because it is routable).
>

Actually its quite practical to mount drives outside of the case using a
rack like this. It's a cost effective option for people who've run out of
space in their current case and don't want to buy a new one or who have
exceeded the capacity of their case's power supply, but have a spare laying
around. I've effectively made a small one of these using a removable cage
from another case. I run the data and extended power cables out a card slot
in the back of my short 1U case to my "external drives." The SATA spec says
that data cables may be up to one (1) meter long so no extenders are needed.

Many people like me have their server in a location that is out of sight,
like the basement or a closet so we don't care about aesthetics. But, if
that matters it's easy enough to use some bread wrapper ties, cable ties or
cable sleeves to tidy things up.

Please read the reviews for this product at Amazon and Newegg. They are
overwhelmingly positive.


> Nonetheless, having external drives in tower would need some case and
> that brings us back to mounting drives in (bigger) PC case as better
> solution.
>

No, as I've explained above. Another option, though, would be to get an
eSATA card and a drive case that supports port multiplication, but then you
have to be aware of the throughput limitations of a shared data path.

Yet another external option, albeit an expensive one, that preserves
performance would be to use thunderbolt.


Phil