A quick bum and update
are you going to put this into the computer that you are using now.
No i want this to be a stand alone system with a single output like an external hard rive.
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
What are you trying to achieve?
At the moment i have a clutter of external hard drive being wire through a 10 port usb hub. It is very messy. I want to remove them from their cases (all passed warranty) and have them all in a single unit. As i am using usb 2.0 i am limited to 490 mb/s. If i want to use to drives at the same time the speed halves.
All i want is to build a tower with one plug and one data cable so i can access all the drives simultaneously without suffering a loss in transfer rate. i.e. an external hard drive. I still how ever want to see every volume.
I am trying to reduce space they occupy and create some kind of hot swappable system to prevent data loss. Since all the hdds are either 1 or 2 tb loosing one is loosing a lot of data!
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
do you have a small business?
No, but i wish i did tongue3.gif
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
home storage?
Yes. all of it is for home use only as this is a DIY project. Was looking at prebuilt machines which cost 300-1200 eu :S tahts a bit pricey! At the moment this is turning out to be about 290 eu sad3.gif I can do it for this much but id preffer not to waste my money smile2.gif
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
do you need redundancy
Preferably yes
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
are you trying to set up a less expensive server?
At the moment no but maybe in the future smile2.gif
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
if one drive fails do you want to be able to "hot-swap" them?
Preferably yes.
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
what size of storage capacity do you want?
In the end it should be 20 TB, at the moment it is only about 9 TB
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
is speed the most important factor?
Speed is important but not crucial. One of the major reasons i started doing this is because i want to get transfer rates up higher. And as mentioned previously if i ever do decide to set it up as server it would be nice to have the speeds already running fast.
QUOTE (robcro @ Apr 18 2010, 08:32 AM) *
give us as much info as possible.thanks
At the start i wanted the 20TB (10x2) to be recognized as a single volume. However if one of the drives failed the whole system failed. So that idea was scrapped straight away.
I don't particularly want to use a motherboard but at the moment this seems to be the cheapest option. As it stands i want a portable system so can pick it up and go. For example if you have 20 tbs of films etc pick up the unit(hdd tower) go to your friends and watch it. Like having a portioned 20 tb external hard drive except in this case it is physically split into 10 parts of 2 tbs.
If i am to use 3 of those:
http://www.addonics.com/products/host_cont...ad4sr5hpmus.asp
I could attach them to the side(power supply will be going on top or on the other side) or something and the unit will be portable with one out put (the two outputs from the first two hubs will go into third to produce a single output). Which can either be USB or SATA. This however brings the total cost of the project to 290 euro sad3.gif
I was hoping that some one here would be able to assist me with the mother board part as my knowledge of hard drives and mother boards i very limited (i know their operations and basic connections).
So i have the following questions:
Would it be cheaper to set something like this up with a motherboard?
Do they have special narrow ones so the tower would look slick (fitted on the side)?
Any other way i can do this without burning through cash (290 eu)?
How do i connect the hard drives?
How do i make it hot swappable?
Will this actually work?
All your thoughts and ideas are welcome! Please let me know if something remains unclear.
Regards,
Defy
