SATA external enclosures

[Handruin]

I've been looking for an external USB/Firewire drive enclosure and stumbled on CoolGear's SPIO352-SUS External drive enclosure with a native SATA connection along with a USB 2.0 connection. The price is higher than most external enclosures but I like the SATA connection and built-in power supply (I dislike the power bricks). Has anyone used one of these?

I've also been trying to find an external array housing for SATA drives. I'd like to expand on my Dell power edge by creating a RAID 5 array for protected data storage. The problem is that there isn't enough room inside the case for more than 3 drives. I am researching a solution which will allow me to run a pass-thru cable to the array enclosure. Has anyone dealt with this type of situation involving SATA? I would likely connect it to a 3ware card, but I'm guessing I'd have to pass multiple SATA cables through the back of the host using eSATA. One example I found is also from coolgear: 4-Bay Hot-Swap SATA RAID External.

 

[Pradeep]

I have a little experience with regards to standard external SATA drives (with the old-style L connectors) and interfacing to the new external SATA-2 connector (which is rectangular). Those cables are rare as hens teeth.

 

[Handruin]

How has your experience been with the externally connected drives? I'm assuming that as long as the cable length is within spec, the performance should be the same as an internal connection?

 

[Pradeep]

Well the app is connecting an external SATA drive to an SA8300 HD DVR box, it can record two HD streams whilst playing back a previously recorded thrid stream with no problems, just like if the drive was internally mounted.

 

[i]

I have a little experience with regards to standard external SATA drives (with the old-style L connectors) and interfacing to the new external SATA-2 connector (which is rectangular). Those cables are rare as hens teeth.

Does anyone have a link to a picture showing the difference?

 

[Pradeep]

I have a little experience with regards to standard external SATA drives (with the old-style L connectors) and interfacing to the new external SATA-2 connector (which is rectangular). Those cables are rare as hens teeth.

Does anyone have a link to a picture showing the difference?

 

[i]

Thanks Pradeep. I take it that's an external (?) adapter cable, going from an original SATA connector at the bottom, over to an SATA-2 connector at the right?

 

[Pradeep]

Yup. I guess the rectangular connecter is termed eSATA now.

 

[Handruin]

I also found this nifty device:

SATA-MULTILANE PCI Adapter SATA I and eSATA II

4-channel SATA PCI Bracket Backplane, supporting an InfiniBand 4X multilane connector compatible with 3Ware" 8506-xxMI series multilane RAID HBA. Provides four 7-pin Serial ATA2 Connectors. One 4-Channel External Multi-Lane (x4) Connectors. Idea to Convert Internal 4 Ports to External 4 Ports. Supports up to 3Gb/s SATA2 Data Transfer Rate. 4 External LED Activity Indicators for each Channels. Supports Host (PC or Server) Side External Converting. Low Profile PCI Brackets Available upon Request. Idea for External JBOD and RAID Connections. Cable Support: Supports Infinite Band x4 (by four) Cable Form Factor: 2.58 x 1.34

Am I SOL if I try to use a 3ware 8000 series or 9500S-4LP series card in a normal PCI slot (inside my Dell SC420)? They all appear to be PCI 2.2 compliant 64-bit/66MHz bus master...

 

[Bozo]

The 8500 series 3Ware card that I'm familier with will go into both styles of PCI slots, 64 and 32 bit.

Are the SATA II cables backwards compatible with SATA I? Or vice-versa?

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Handruin]

That's good news Bozo, thanks for the info. I realize the performance will be less, but for my needs it should be more than adequate...and better than a software RAID solution.

I also have to research the cables to answer the same question you asked. I don't know how backward compatibility works with SATA & SATAII.

 

[mubs]

I know I'm a wee bit late, Doug, but I'm seriously looking to buy one of these from Newegg; seems to be a quality enclosure for a decent price.

Info on eSata is sorely lacking; I'm presuming and hoping that I can plug in the PCI bracket's cable into an onboard SATA port and it'll work ok. The eSata spec says something about additional current because of longer distance etc. but they don't say anything about using an onboard port other than that it was a kluge and outta spec.

 

[Handruin]

You're not late. I still haven't bought anything...I procrastinate on hardware purchases to the point where it's ridiculous. That enclosure actually looks decent (and a bunch less expensive too)! I might have to get back into the external drive phase I was in…but I have to pay off the new tires first.

 

[Pradeep]

SATA II (external) is fully rectangular.

That Athena enclosure looks like it uses a standard SATA connector (L shaped), so any normal SATA cable should work.

AFAIK, for internal connections, there is no difference between SATA I and II.

 

[Santilli]

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg62_alumhotswapinternal.htm

I've also bought, and used, three of these, and been happy with them

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg51_hot-swapinternalsystem.htm

GS

 

[mubs]

Doug, were you looking for something like this?

 

[Groltz]

Whatever you do, avoid cooldrives.com and all its other 100-or-so sister operations like they're the plague. They are the worst in customer service and product quality.

Check for this address:

10780 47th Street North BUILDING B
ClearWater Florida 33762

They all have the same one.

ResellerRatings

**********

I used an Addonics Saturn ExDrive SED SA-U2 enclosure with a Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 for my external HD. It works well.

 

[Handruin]

That's an interesting array, mubs. That looks like it would work with the infiniband connection, coupled with the 4 to 1 backplate. Otherwise that is similar to the enclosures I was looking at previously.

Thanks for the info Groltz. Is cooldrives similar to coolgear drive enclosure I listed at the top of this thread (one of the sister sites you spoke of)? Did you have a personal experieince with them, or was it based on resellerratings? They do seem to have a terrible rating on resellerratings.com

 

[Groltz]

Is cooldrives similar to coolgear drive enclosure I listed at the top of this thread (one of the sister sites you spoke of)?

Yes, that is the exact place.

Did you have a personal experieince with them, or was it based on resellerratings?

I had personal experience in trying to find the availability of one of their enclosures last fall. It said on the website that it was in stock. I tried to order one and they email that it's out of stock. I ask when they'll get some in. They say 30 days (!) I email back in a month to ask and get "There's no ETA now". Some of my emails to them had to be resent more than twice just to get a reply.

Besides ResellerRatings, there was a site that I found several months ago that was a collective complaint blog against cooldrives, et al. I tried hard to find it again today for my post but couldn't come up with it. There were people on that site that had actually claimed to have been threatened by cooldrives staff people on the telephone.