Best solution for a lot of hard drives?

[Aquinas]

I have a sort of unique problem that I would appreciate your expert opinions on: I have 10 IDE hard drives (PATA) which I need to have in one computer and one case.

First, is this possible?

What power supply / case is recommended?

How about motherboard? Just something with a lot of PCI slots and then add pci IDE controllers?

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[TankGuys]

Originally posted by: Aquinas
I have a sort of unique problem that I would appreciate your expert opinions on: I have 10 IDE hard drives (PATA) which I need to have in one computer and one case.

First, is this possible?

What power supply / case is recommended?

How about motherboard? Just something with a lot of PCI slots and then add pci IDE controllers?

Thanks in advance guys!

Out of curiosity, why do you need 10 hard drives?

This will be a power issue, and will also generate a lot of heat... so I'm curious as to why you'd like to do so.

 

[CrispyFried]

Sure its possible, just make sure the add on pata controllers are capable of being assigned as the 2nd and 3rd (or whatever) controllers. Between the on board and 2 add on controllers that should give 12 drives (if the cards support primary/secondary channels, so 4 HDs per card), so you can have 10 HDs and a couple opticals. Of course youll need an ubar PSU and good air flow too.

Some mobos have extra IDE controllers built in, but sometimes the extras are specialized for raid or whatever, so standard add on controllers may be better. Also some add on IDE controllers dont like optical drives hooked to them, so be sure to check that, or just run 2 HDs and the opticals on the on board controller and the rest on the add on cards.

 

[Zepper]

You will want to run two PSUs or rig up a way to stagger-start the drives as starting up 10 HDs at the same time will require 20-30Amps on the +12V rail just for the drives not to mention all the other stuff trying to start up at the same time. The Codegen S101 case can handle it either way. Use a couple of Coolermaster 4x3 boxes ($20. each on jab-tech or svc.com) to hold most of the drives but dump the OE fans as they are cheap, sleeve-bearing types (unless they are the rifle bearing types as are on some CM fans). You will also need a couple of PCI controllers that handle up to four drives each plus the leftovers on the mobo's integrated controller. You'll have to check carefully that the cards are OK with another in the same machine. If possible, use the Silicon Image based cards as they are the most flexible - anything from old/slow LS-120 ATAPI drives to RAID 0+1 will work on them. Supposed to be able to do JaBoD too (drive spanning w/o striping). I think Adaptec sells a decent one - but they limit the SI chip to non RAID functions (if you don't think you'll ever need the RAID functions, then you're set) - their RAID card is HighPoint based and is HD only and has an MSRP of $75... Or check the Syba or similar to save money. Or check the OrangeMicro card I'm selling on eBay for as low as $21.50 shipped - my eBay nick is technoia.

.bh.

 

[Aquinas]

Wow, thanks for the great input guys!

I'm not at liberty to say what the drives are for, but I do have a hard requirement for all 10.

So I guess as long as I put two beefy power supplies into the Codegen S101 with those Coolermaster 4x3 boxes I'm set with power and cooling. I have no requirement for RAID nor JBoD. So, I think I've settled on the Highpoint Rocket 133 cards (which they say can have up to 4 cards in one macine). Power: I'm looking at 2 of the OCZ OCZ520ADJ 520W PSUs. I figure going with two of them is better than the much more expensive dual 12V rail PSUs.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

 

[Zepper]

Actually the Sparkle FSP550-60PLG (there are other places that have it for cheaper than Newegg at least before shipping - e.g. ewiz at $85.50 per froogle) would do the job and probably save money over the OCZ (phew, I didn't think it would be about $50. cheaper ).
. If you rigged a time delay relay to bring half the drives on line about 10 seconds after the first 5, the sparkle COULD hack it alone. It's only at startup that the 20-30 amps are needed (obtained by adding all the starting currents of the HDs together). When running they would only need 10-15 amps total (about 1 amp or so each).
. Make sure you don't leave disks in the opticals so they don't add to the startup load.

. OTOH if you go the two PSU route, one of those Sparkles could almost carry it alone - the second PSU could be much smaller and cheaper - say one with about 20 Amps on the +12... You could put 4 or 5 of the HDs on the sparkle and the rest of the HDs and opticals on the smaller.

.bh.

 

[iamtrout]

Hmmm... I'm running 6 hard drives currently off of a Fortron 500W Blue Storm. My setup is in my sig, along with a water pump. On powerup the hard drives DO NOT all power up at the same time, and I have no time delay relay. I guess power supplies are intelligent like that? They will automatically power up one thing at a time if it can't all power up at the same time. But yeah, run two HDDs from the mobo, 4 from a IDE controller, and 4 from another IDE controller.

 

[CrispyFried]

Some HDs will delay startup by a couple seconds or so if they are set to Slave. Some BIOSes will allow you to set a HD spin up delay also.

Iamtrout, its not the PSU thats delaying the HDs, its the add on IDE cards, the BIOS or the HDs themselves (or some combo of that) that is causing them to spin up at different times.. you may not of set anything, its probably automatic as the add on cards usually have their own BIOS that is smart enough to delay things.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: Aquinas
I have a sort of unique problem that I would appreciate your expert opinions on: I have 10 IDE hard drives (PATA) which I need to have in one computer and one case.

First, is this possible?

What power supply / case is recommended?

How about motherboard? Just something with a lot of PCI slots and then add pci IDE controllers?

Thanks in advance guys!

Easily. I have 17 hard drives in a Coolermaster CMStacker case. I use drive brackets from CalPCSystems to mount the drives in the bays and keep them cool. They sell 2 kinds of brackets:

5 3.5" drives in 3 5.25" bay (on eBay for $25ish, on the website for $38)
3 3.5" drives in 2 5.25" bay (on eBay for $20ish, not always there.)

The brackets work in most cases. I also have a 3 drive bracket in a Lian-Li case. Each bracket has a 80mm fan in front. I can't emphasize enough the importance of good cooling.

Check out NewEgg for case choices... they have many that will fit your needs.

As far as PSUs go, I always go Zippy/EMacs. They're also at NewEgg. For your setup, I'd go with their 460W PSU. With 32A on the 12V line, it'll have plenty of power for 10 drives. These PSUs go for $100. Antec's supplies are pretty good too, but generally cost more. I have 2 of the 460W Zippy's and they're rock solid. You don't need 2 PSUs for 10 drives, just one decent one.

As as the controller cards go, it all depends if you want RAID or not. If you want RAID, 3ware is the way to go. Get a 7506-12 card off eBay. Otherwise, the Highpoint RocketRAID 404/454/464 4 port cards are excellent. Those do RAID as well, but not as well as 3ware. I use Vantec's round IDE cables. The cheaper ones fail me.

About the hard drives: forget that they can do Master/Slave. Its just asking for trouble.

As far as the motherboard goes, it depends on the controller card. If you are going the RAID plus 3ware route, you'll want a motherboard with 64-bit slots. I use the SuperMicro P4SCi and have had good luck. Otherwise, I have had great luck with the Asus A7V880 board - get a mobile Athlon XP chip and you'll be set.

Are you making a file server, or is this on your personal machine?

 

[Aquinas]

This is actually a pseudo file server. I have some data that needs to be access (without RAID) on 10 IDE hard drives. I am not free to combine the data on other media. I have to use them as is. The hint about drives in the optical is good to know- I would never have thought of that.

Thanks guys this is all great information. Because price is not so much of a concern, I will go with 2 PSU just to be safe. A question about them though- I seem to recall trying something like this in the past and not being able to get teh second PSU powered on because it was not plugged into the motherboard. How would I get around that this time? Is there a way to have the 2nd PSU power on and off from the motherboard? I have little experience with this, but I seem to remember the PSU needing to be plugged into the ATK connector to work...

Thanks!

 

[PsYcHoCoW]

here's a how-to: http://www.pc-mod.com/articles/atx/

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: Aquinas
Wow, thanks for the great input guys!

I'm not at liberty to say what the drives are for, but I do have a hard requirement for all 10.

Well, that's either porn or the secret service...

 

[swtethan]

porn

 

[Mellman]

honestly if price is not a concern - and you have this much storage....i hope you're doing backups constantly...

If this is not personal data and you value any of it raid 5 is seriously the way to go - when one of your drives fail and you lose your job because the data wasnt being backed up...well then you get the picture.

I have a raid setup for my personal data because some of my digital photographs cannot be replaced. I have them backed up in 3 different locations, and the raid so you could call me paranoid, but ive lost data before and it is not fun. (thank god for data recovery software!)

-matt

 

[imported_Kensai]

Lian Li v2000B + PC P & C 510W Deluxe.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Buy a big case, toss in some controllers and an extra power supply.
Tas.

 

[JEDIYoda]

issue security national see I

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