I've got 12 drives in a Bitfenix Merc Alpha and couldn't be happier. Managed to fit the 8 internal drive slots supplemented with a Rosewill 3 x 5.25-Inch to 4 x 3.5-Inch Hot-swap from Amazon with a super cheap PCIe x1 4x Sata card.
With some cautious cable management and adding in additional 120mm fans blowing on the drives my HDD temps never run over 40C, even under load (mix of 2 and 3 TB 7200RPM WD/Seagates).
I agree with u/meta-perspective as the space between the bottom of the drive cage and the PSU is absolutely jammed with power cables, and you couldn't store additional drives there.
Don't forget unraid only installs and boots off a usb thumb drive so don't buy an ssd for the OS. I'd get a case that holds many more drives they are pretty cheap. Array doesn't require a parity drive and a cheap LSI hba off ebay is a great way to add 8 drives for ~$40
I enjoy these too since they fit in 5.25" bays and the backplane will accept sata/sas (if you have a sas hba) https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
I have a different brand enclosure but same concept.
Another vote for old system here. You can probably even pull the 8800 GTS and use the 2500's onboard graphics. If you need more space for HDD's and it's got 3 5.25" bays you can get something like this
Can't comment on that one but i've got two of these guys: clicken link
They've been good to me so far and take 120mm fans for cooling. (which I promptly replaced with Noctua ones) Power is supplied via 2x 4 pin molex cables.
Never mind, i found it. Google truly is my friend.
Rosewill 3 x 5.25-Inch to 4 x 3.5-Inch Hot-swap SATAIII/SAS Hard Disk Drive Cage - Black (RSV-SATA-Cage-34) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_S16C20VNP3V1TMJ3S5D8?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I have, my current setup is a bit jank, so I honestly may just have to move all my HDDS to a seperate slave PC. I have 2 HDD swap cages that I use to store all my extra games / software, so I can just insert it when needed, like the cartridge's of old. My current case holds them just fine, and with the fan door swapping one in takes just a few moments
If like a External hard drive enclosure it has a PCB built into it then interface with the SATA and power on its own, that’s what I would love or a build in Hot swappable bay.
I think this will get me close to that now that I know what I’m looking for.
Thanks.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_307xCb0KRAHT6
Trios of them are also included in certain Rosewill rack cases, but seems you can get them on their own. I hope it fits. Also I'll probs swap in a Noctua fan on it.
since there is 3x 5.25inch bays you can pop in a 4x 3.5" hotswap drive cage in there. Like this one then i'd use 4tb HGST drives. Edit: there are 8 SATA ports on the board, so using that cage + the 3 internal bays you could have 7 storage drives and use 1 ssd for os. I'd just tape or Velcro the ssd to the bottom.
the fans are in front of the hard drives so the cool air cools the drives
but yeah ive got 8 drives in mine and half are in the optical bays and my ssd is in the floppy drive bay you can get pretty good multi hdd cages that take up 2-3 optical bays such as this one i randomly found on google https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
some of the better ones have built in fans and other features
no issues in ~10 years but everything is properly mounted and horizontal
maybe get a cheaper case with 3 5.25in bays and get one of these for the 4 drives you'll want to hot swap https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1483677538&sr=8-2&keywords=hot+swap+bays
I have 3 of these: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
No complaints for 3.5 inch drives but I had a SSD in one of the bays temporarily that was giving I/O errors that were remedied when I moved them to a 2.5 inch bay.
Good to know for next time! Was a little panicked since it does have valuable data on it. So starting a data dump now. And the thing is, it's not just one drive that's throwing errors it's four, and two are throwing checksum errors, which I thought was kind of unusual. Could it possibly be the back-plate I'm using? This one (amazon link)
I used this one. My server is a rsv-4000, but these should work in any 4u rosewill case.
I've been using an Icydock bay that fits 6x 2.5" drives into a single 5.25" bay - happy with that one. Just bought this Rosewill one for 3.5" drives that people seem to like - haven't used it yet though: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
The Icydock 3.5" ones are $93 and $133 on Amazon, but do hold 5 drives instead of the Rosewill's 4. There is also this external one, ugly but pretty cheap and you can stack two: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111045
Rosewill actually sells the cages by themselves on amazon here. If you bought the non-hotswappable one and decided to buy the 3 cages later you'd currently spend an extra $20 dollars then just buying the hotswappable rosewill chassis which isn't really that bad. But you do have to remember you will lose 3 drive spaces since the non-hotswappable has a total of 15 and the hot-swappable has a total of 12 drive slots.
Ultimately what I've done because I really didn't know what I wanted to do is use old computer parts for my current server and put that in my Rosewill chassis. Recently I've just bought new (used) server grade components and the next thing I'll do is switch to better bigger chassis after I fill up my current one which won't be any time soon for me.
I also recommend r/JDM_WAAAT he has really good (cheap-pricey) server builds if you don't know what you want to do.
Here's a "review" of the non-hotswap chassis so you can get more insight into it.
They should fit ant 5.25 slot. I have 3 in a rosewill case. They have little metal bars for the sides so not sure how they'll lock in.
Cheaper here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_oSyxFbA2CRJ1W
Oh, it is. But it was definitely still a case of an upgrade here, an upgrade there, and before I knew it I could have bought an old Dell R710 or the like. =)
I don't have any good pics handy, but I do have a little video clip of the drives blinking as the array initialized.
For a view of the drive cages which you can actually see them, the amazon product page works nicely. The Rosewill case I used has them so the drives are vertical. It's just two of those side by side.
I should really get a decent pic of it. =P
Setting it up was easy. Each cage takes two molex power leads and has four SATA plugs, one for each drive. It really was just plug and play.
Icydock and Startech make a whole bunch of them, among a host of other random companies. Some of them are kinda pricy though.
Example: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/
I've got two of these3x5.25" to 4x3.5" hot swap cages I was using until a month or two ago (I swapped everything into a smaller case with a built in 8 bay cage.
I don't think you'll be easily able to install that HP backplane into a normal PC, and the cages I was using required a full ATX tower case with 6 5.25" bays (my case has 8 or 10, I forget - it's an OG Thermaltake Armor full tower case that I've had for nearly a couple decades now - man I'm old).
do you have multiple external 5.25 inch bays?
https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
If you're willing to go as far as DIY'ing a product :
If you have an available PCIe slot, use one of these. You'll need this cable. Use a 4 bay hot swap cage like this one. I was using a normal ATX power supply to power mine, but eventually moved both of the hot swap cages into a PC case to clean everything up, which required I change to a different cable (and am in the process of moving everything into this case right now).
The HBA will present the disks to your OS as if they were internal. The cable converts the external SFF-8088 connection to standard SATA connectors, which the hot swap cage needs. Add power (by either extending a cable from your power supply or using a standard power supply externally), and you've got your extra HDD bays.
I currently have a SATA PCIE card to expand the amount of hdd by 4 and a hdd rack that goes into the 5.25 bays of my case.
I need to add an extra set of hdd (just one hdd...for now) and an extra sata PCIE card and I was wondering if there is better option than what I have. I have linked the two parts I currently have to add an extra 4 hdd (I have 9 hdd/ssd in my case)
>I would love tobuse something like a Synology Diskstation to move my drives and data to, but unfortunately, the DS line doesn't appear to support SAS drives... Can anyone make a suggestion for a non-rack form-factor, 12 bay, sas-capable NAS?
If you're interested in DSM / it's UI, try XPEnology, either with a case (like the Silverstone CS380 that I'm using) or a case filled with some of these, along with an LSI9208-8i/9211-8i/similar would work -- it's what I'm doing. Currently have seven 4TB SAS drives (a NETAPP, HP, and WD mixture) in use with a RAID6 storage pool, on top of which I've created my volumes. ;)
I followed a forum post (from the XPEnology forums) to get it set up on my Ryzen system -- it's apparently far easier to do with Intel systems, but otherwise it's been trouble free. The WD SAS drives I've had in it, on the other hand...
If you did go this route, and you had issues, you've always got a nice setup ready for something like TrueNAS. ;)
RSV-SATA-Cage-34
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/
There are two power sources split in the backplane. I emailed their tech support asking if there was any incompatibility problems... I'm currently 3d printing some hard drive spacers in the mean time ;)
I mostly tell folks to avoid rack hardware because it's stupidly loud. There've been a good number of posts here that go along the lines of, "I put (insert rack mount server / switch here) in my basement and I can hear it in the room right above!". Workstations aren't generally any less expensive, however, they are considerably more quiet, not to mention physically smaller (resembling a large gaming tower, minus all the stupid RGB lights)...
Anyway, as to my "DAS" -- it's housed in an original Thermaltake Armor full tower case. It has two of these, two of these, and one of these installed. It has a 500-ish watt power supply that has been modified to always be powered on (so it doesn't need a motherboard to trigger it to power on). With this combination of hardware, I have 8 drive bays, and if I needed to, I could add one more of the hot-swap chasses (along with the supporting cable and another of the internal to external SAS boards.
Externally, I have two of these plugged between a Dell H200e SAS controller in my ESXi host and the SAS internal to external board from the previous paragraph.
Load up an OS (in my case, I passed the H200e to my WHS2011 VM), load up the drivers (they were installed automagically in my case), and the OS will be able to directly see every HDD you insert. Hot swapping drives works, too. From here, you can run software RAID (UnRAID, TrueNAS, some flavor of linux with ZFS or mdadm, or whatever else you want). In my case, I use StableBit's DrivePool. It lets me use mismatched drive types / sizes without any issues. I can set up file or folder redundancy (this tells DrivePool to make a copy of whatever data I'm wanting to keep safer to two or more of the drives in the pool). You could even give all the disks directly to your hypervisor and let it handle storage.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM/
Looks like this. They're hard to find.
It depends on what hotswap cage you get, but generally there will be one or two power plugs per cage and individual SATA plugs for each disk in the cage. The Rosewill cages (which replace 3 5.25" slots with 4 3.5" trayed hotswap slots) take 2 molex power connectors (the big ones, not the SATA power connectors). This Kingwin 4-disk trayless cage that takes two SATA power connectors, and this IcyDock 5-disk trayless cage takes three SATA power connectors.
Indeed, it is a challenge.
Something like this could work.
https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
For me it is this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Don't have to open the case on my tower servers to change drives.
I believe they are referring to this. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-3QtFbA9GS930
This sounds like a good option. But I’m a bit unsure about the hotswap cages. Are you saying I could buy something like this, remove the blank covers on the cage and insert one of these. And then I just need to make sure my motherboard has enough sata ports, and enough power cords from the power supply?
Like just a cage like this?
https://www.amazon.ca/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
​
I have one of these in my rosewill 4u rackmount. I *think* this fits into those ikea CD bookshelves for a DIY option.
When you buy that rosewill, it just comes with three of these in them. I have to believe you could put whatever you want in them that fits in 3x5.25 bays.
Oh, I hadn't at all thought about the issue of triggering the PSU. I'm researching now if the PSU of the Gen8 would be strong enough to power one or even multiple additional hard drives. I think i'd like to avoid Molex to SATA (lose all your data), but have found external enclosures which would take Molex, e.g. this one.
Just rebuilt my server in a phanteks Enthoo Pro (http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-Pro.html) case and love it. If you get the Roswell cage (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_16mjDb80Q86DD) it’ll hold 10x 3.5” drives and has separate mounts for up to 4 ssd’s. Also fits a Noctura air cooler no problem. Same with massive cards.
Any case with 3x 5.25 front panel will accommodate something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/
So even the Antec Three Hundred Two can hold 6 internal + 4 hot swap = 10 total.
I saw someone else recommend the Navepoint rails, so that's probably where I'll end up once I'm ready to rack it. Many thanks for the tip!
Rosewill also sells a 4-bay hotswap module that you can reconfigure into this case as this guy did, so I went ahead and ordered one of those as well.
Thanks for your response...
I have the drives connected into this Rosewill hard drive cage (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) directly to my mobo (Asus M5A97 LE 2.0) https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B008RPZ5SC/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_bSPHCb13Y6H8A. I believe this cage is just passing connections via sata cable to my mobo as there is a one-to-one sata connections to hard drives.
I've tried a reboot and the 2nd drive didn't appear. The one drive that did connect did show up on the GUI after a few minutes. Also, I can switch from one cage spot to another and the working disk will come right back.
I have a hard drive dock that can clone a hard drive, I may try that tomorrow.
​
Edit to remove accidental quote.
Those hotswap bays are sold alone (4x3.5" to 3x5.25") -> https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
Yeah that's actually a pretty decent machine for a simple home server. You could run FreeNAS or Openfiler or OpenMediaVault on there pretty easily. The RAID configuration you're proposing is perfectly fine. You could then put the two RAID volumes into one LVM group to make one big LVM volume, if you want.
One thing I worry about is the available SATA ports. The specs don't list what's available but I'll assume it's four ports. If you want to add more drives, you'll need a SATA controller card, and it looks like there's only one PCIe x16 slot and one regular PCI slot. You'd want to use the PCIe slot for a SATA controller for its throughput, but the video card is likely occupying that slot, and if there's no on-board video, you'll have to install a PCI video card or use the PCI slot for the SATA controller or sacrifice video altogether, all of which seem problematic.
If there's not enough room inside for all four drives, you could install something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/
Also, this is probably the correct sub for what you're asking.
If you have 3 extra 5.25" bays in the front of your computer you could slap this bad boy in there and BAM! Problem solved.
This?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
​
What about power, cpu, ram and your MB?
These guys?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
​
What about power, cpu, ram and your MB?
I would think this is a much better choice:
​
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
​
guys will the Rosewill Rack case fit these bays?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza
that would be the best of both worlds, cheap and hot-swappable. Will probably have to find some used ones on eBay.
You can always just get a regular case with lots of external bays, and use enclosure adaptors: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM
External drive bays, just means accesible from outside the case (eg. the 5.25" drives that are on the front of the case for DVD drives).
Now that I know what I'm looking for I'll have a quick look around.
My recommendation though would be to find a cheap (second hand works too) mid ATX (ie. the standard size) case with 3x 5.25" drives and use a caddy (eg. this) to install your drives in. I use a similar setup with 3x Icydock Cages in my Nas
In this case, Rosewill RSV-SATA-Cage-34.
Yes it is a 3 slot 5 1/4 I just have a drive sitting on the bottom of that rack. Something like this I'm guessing? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM?psc=1.
Bend the tabs out of the way instead of trying to cut it.
Also the pic clearly doesn't have those slits. Clearly a design flaw. The rosewill one I have did.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/58ens9/jbob_just_a_bunch_of_boxes_netwerkz_mini/
Are you stuck on 3.5" drives?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGZ42SM <~ on a shelf ..fab a slide lock.
-Or-
24 7mm SSD drives in 1U is easily doable.
12 15mm HDD is possible but start think of creative cooling.
You say you are a DYI kind of person ... expand your mind and get to work.
I'm looking forward to it.
I have a Dell t3500 with 2 HDDs and 1 SSD. They're kind of floating around inside the case, and I'd like to get them mounted more solidly. I'd like to add at least one more HDD in the future.
Could I get something like this hot-swap cage and rip out the DVD drive and front 5.25" panel covers and fit it in there? If so, what's the biggest one I can fit? Is there anything I should know about compatibility/fit? Thanks!
Edit: added internal case pictures http://i.imgur.com/OUUZpcJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/vYxbsff.jpg
I have the NZXT source 210 good case, but add fans to the drive cages. I also got a 3x5.25 bay to 4 x 3.5 adapter to bring my drive count up to 13 (8 Disk in the cages + free hanging Boot SSD + 4 in the bay adapter). Get the rosewill bay adapter not the silverstone one doesn't fit well, not sure if i can post links
EDIT: links added
I can't seem to find the program I was thinking of, but this forum thread about WDIDLE could be what you're looking for. Just set the timeout really low instead of really high
The problem with something like this is that the more you power the drives on and back off, the more likely they are to fail. If all you are using the extra drives for is bulk storage of things you don't access very often, somoething like this where you can physically disconnect the drives you aren't using (or just pop the side panel off your case and unplug the drives)
Re purposing an old computer tower and making a separate NAS box to move to another room is probably the best solution for keeping all your storage reliable, accessible, and quiet.
What enclosure currently houses your freeNAS box? How many rack units do you have to work with? One route could be to move to a bigger chassis. Potentially a new 3U enclosure with 6x5.25 external bays (http://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-11-192-340) and two of these http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00
I got two of these and man do I love them, they may not be the highest quality, but there is lots of free space between the drives for plenty of air flow.
Alternatively, these will convert 3x5.25 into 4x3.5" hot swap.
Why not get a SAS/Sata Hotswap bay? I have a Rosewill 4 bay hostwap that does both SAS and SATA.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Hi what is this and is there a model that could accommodate 2-4 3tb hdds?
I have one of theses laying around http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I'm currently running 2 of these in my Chenbro 4U RM42300-F. They work pretty ok. One had a bad drive LED in which I used Amazon to return/replace it.