On 12/21/06, Garl Grigsby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Quentin Hartman wrote: > On 12/21/06, Darren Hayes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> This article on eSATA may be of interest. >> http://news.com.com/Faster+external+drives+arriving-slowly/2100-1041_3-6144673.html >> > > I second the suggestion of using eSATA rather than just hot-swapping > normal SATA. The eSATA connectors are designed to hold up to more > insertion/removal and also are more "grippy" so you are less likely to > have a cable come loose part of the way through a transfer. I'm not planning on doing hot swap with standard SATA. I'm looking to do it with a drive cage. Something like [1], [2], or [3]. This is one of the things I was looking for input on. What cages are good.
Gotcha. I've personally used the 3Ware one, and I've looked at one at Fry's that looks exactly like the Athena Power, though it was branded differently. FWIW, all of those cages use standard SATA connectors in them on the backplane that connect directly to the drives, and I wouldn't want to use them to do frequent changes for the wear and tear on the connectors. The 3Ware cages seem quite good, they never gave me any trouble. I only swapped drives hot twice though, once as a test, and once because I actually needed to. Though they are loud, there are 2 or 3 high RPM fans on them, good for cooling, bad for keeping under someone's desk.
As for eSATA, it's still fairly early in that game. Not many mother boards support it. You can get the adapters that plug between a standard SATA port and a eSATA port, but, again, not sure if the hot swap works correctly. In fact I'm leaning toward getting a couple of external USB + eSATA drive chassis [4] and using these, but cage above would be much 'cleaner'. No cables to accidentally unplug, no power cables to come loose, no power supplies to die, etc.
For the purposes you initially described, I still think eSATA would be the best solution, though the hybrid box is a good idea if for no other reason than portability. Assuming your chipset supports SATA hotplug correctly, the only special "magic" in eSATA is the connector design. If your chipset is new, it likely supports hotplug correctly, remember what I mentioned is only (AFAIK) a rumor. The other issue wtih eSata is the
short cable length. IIRC the max length is 2-3'. Having the USB gives me an 'out' if eSATA doesn't live up to the hype or causes other problems.
Six foot eSATA cables can be bought here: http://www.satasite.com/sata-cables-external.htm If I were designing something to meet the needs you initially described, I'd do an internal cage combined with a single-drive external chassis. That way you get the best of all worlds, and have some spare space in the internal chassis to grow the array should you need to. -- -Regards- -Quentin Hartman- _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
