Opinions - 14 x 250GB PATA

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ShockValue

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 27, 2001
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Being at the right place at the right time, I've inherited fourteen 250GB PATA drives. Awesome. I'd love to create a big RAID5 array for 3.25TB of storage. I have lots of spare PC parts floating around to create a server with.

Problem....

I'm broke so can't afford some $1000 case to house them all.

Anyone know of some way I could pull this off for less than say, $200?

Speed isn't all that important since the network would be the bottleneck.. So I don't care about XOR/Software, fancy lights, etc..
 
Your looking for a case? You could make one, out of wood I guess. Would be the easiest way.
 
I guess I'm looking for a case.. Either some cheapy external enclosure that could hold all 14, or a whole tower case that would hold the mobo/cpu as well.

Hrm.. wood case.. I'm "ok" with my woodworking stuff... interesting idea.
 
I second the wood case idea. It'll be hard to find a case that can hold 14 drives for that cheap. Perhaps an e-bay look for a nice 4U server case with 16 bays, but other than that.
 
I know your looking for a case but just out of curiosity, wouldn't raid 6 be a better choice for so many drives?
 
thebeephaha said:
I know your looking for a case but just out of curiosity, wouldn't raid 6 be a better choice for so many drives?
Click to expand...

Very good point that I didn't think of: do use RAID 6 or you're asking for trouble, especially with a bunch of second-hand drives.
 
Pardon my French, but what the hades are you going to do with 3.25 TB of storage?

Uhm, that is a lot. ;-)

If you did not have a reason for it then, why do you have a reason for it now?

Sell the darn things on Ebay, and bank the cash for a better rig in a couple of years. Building a great big array out of these drives now just does not make a whole lot of sense to me.

Don
 
Interesting. I have a similar problem. I already have a 14 drive rack mountable array that once housed 18g scsi drives that I am converting to house (10 -14) x 1TB sata drives just need to come up with a power source and a way to connect 10+ drives externaly with out running 10 individual sata cables to my main 2TB server.

Currently researching sata multipliers and esata etc. I am currently searching for a budget option.

my 2TB linux mdadm raid server is almost out of storage space.

.
 
Buy a cheap $20 case (they have space for 14 drives), toss in a cheap motherboard/cpu/ram/psu and some cheap ide controllers.


That should set you under 200 bucks.
 
How are you gonna configure it? I would put 2 in RAID1 for / and /home, that would leave you with 12 leftover... RAID6 would be good. That gives you 250GB for OS, and 2.5TB for storage, with the ability to lose 2 drives. Man that thing is gonna be loud and hot.
 
@xenotype: No kidding. Thank god for software raid and an idle 2.8Ghz proc.

@Danny: Will check out those suggestions, thanks Danny.

@idea: I dont really need 250G for ./ and /home.. It's just going to be a dumb fileserver.. Maybe do some other menial network services. I'm going to try and save all the 250's for the main array, and use an old 80G for the OS i think.

@Ockie: a cheap case with 14 drive bays? Example?

@DonDon: The reason? Fun and convenience.. Would be cool to store all 200 of my DVD's so I can play them with a click in MediaPortal.


RAID6 sounds like sound reasoning.. Never run it before, but never had more than a few drives in an array either..
 
I'm sure you could pick up some cheap pata controllers on ebay. Other than that, there was a thread floating in the hot deals section about a $30 HUGE case. Then i'd get those coolermaster 4in3's and be done with it.
 
last time i was at Fry's they had a tower that held a power supply and a boatload of drives. Only drives, no other components. Ran over usb or eSATA i believe.
 
I remember someone building custom hard drive rails a while back.
It turned out pretty.

I believe he found the parts at ACE hardware.
Using rails you can certainly fit 14 HDs in one full tower case really easily with room for two power supplies.
 
spectrumbx said:
I remember someone building custom hard drive rails a while back.
It turned out pretty.

I believe he found the parts at ACE hardware.
Using rails you can certainly fit 14 HDs in one full tower case really easily with room for two power supplies.
Click to expand...

Psrage did this (albeit with sata drives, but the idea is good)

newservr36.jpg

newservr37.jpg
 
just sell that junk off and pick up a couple of cheap 750GB drives
 
+2
the amount of power and heat those things are gonna generate is retarded....
sell them ALL. looking @ ebay they go for about 40... minus fees. 38 each or so. gives u 532 bux!
a 1TB WD drive is 200 bux..... and there u have 2 TBs, if u want, get 750gb drives - 150 bux each....

smaller case, smaller electricity bill, no raid card to buy either, and these drives wont break... right away :p





EnderW said:
just sell that junk off and pick up a couple of cheap 750GB drives
Click to expand...
 
chronic9 said:
+2
the amount of power and heat those things are gonna generate is retarded....
sell them ALL. looking @ ebay they go for about 40... minus fees. 38 each or so. gives u 532 bux!
a 1TB WD drive is 200 bux..... and there u have 2 TBs, if u want, get 750gb drives - 150 bux each....

smaller case, smaller electricity bill, no raid card to buy either, and these drives wont break... right away :p
Click to expand...
actually you can get one of the best 750GB drives out for $113
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007193&prodlist=celebros
 
Danny Bui said:
Get this case:
AeroCool Masstige - $100

And three of these:
Cooler Master STB-3T4-E1-GP 4 in 3 Device Module w/ 120mm Fan - $18

Total should be around $155 plus tax and shipping. With the above setup, you can fit all 14 drives into a single case for under $200.
Click to expand...

If you REALLY need to just cram as many drives into three 5.25" slots as possible, these brackets hold five:

http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva...ode=SC&Product_Code=BR2U19&Category_Code=Acce.

Then that case could hold 17 drives, and still have room for the dvd-rom.

Just FYI for all...
 
This cost me like $20 I think (dented case was free):
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1219297

It actually worked fine... but reliability just got to me. Raid isn't a substitue for backups but I roll the dice with RAID6 and fingers crossed... knowing this I couldn't handle using all my old ass 250GB drives.

I ended up selling / giving away all my 250s and buying more 500s... now I have 8 500s in RAID6... no need for crazy case.

Wow and btw 14 PATA drives is going to be crazy cabling.
 
I would say sell them off and get bigger/newer. I went over this sort of thing six months ago trying to figure out what just my power savings would be on my servers.

12watts x 14drives x 24hours x 30.5daysPer / 1000 x .10cents x 12months = $147ish
8watts x 3drives x 24hours x 30.5daysPer / 1000 x .10cents x 12months = $21ish

I'm bad at math, so I may have farked up the calculations, but from what I'm seeing, you get a 750G drive for free after a year of 24/7 use.

Im my case I still used the 250G drives for Recorded TV storage. so oh well.:p
 
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