Re: [tlug] options when running out of external connectors

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2009-07-30 12:37 +0900 (Thu), Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:

> 2) addition of more USB-port cards (as far as slots allow);

Or, if you're not doing a lot of data transfer from all drives
simultaneously, just use USB hubs.

> Costs are not the dominant concern here: space and ease of access
> (including for disk replacement) have quite high priority too.

I would say go for one or more of those cases that hold eight disks
and have an external SATA interface or interfaces. If you don't access
more than two or three drives in parallel, or you do but you're not too
concerned about speed, you can get a SATA Port Multiplier (though check
that your kernel supports these!) which will let you consolidate all
eight disks on to a single controller port on your computer. 

If you do need full speed access to all disks in parallel (which I'm
guessing you don't, given that you're using USB right now), you'll need
to use an individual SATA connection for each disk. To keep the cabling
clean, you can use SATA multilane; there's a good example of such a case
and cables here:

    http://www.cooldrives.com/fonasamidren.html

For ease of access, you may want to get a case that uses hot-swap bays.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
           Functional programming in all senses of the word:
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