NEED HELP ON STORAGE

[mrtbig]

I am wanting to add storage for several hard drives. What is the best way to do this?

I have an extra PIV 2.6 Processor - no case, no motherboard.

I thought I could just get a case with power supply and mount drives in it and then connect to my computer? I thought I would do this with serial ata drives and just run serial ata cord to my computer and attach to PCI sata card. Can I do this?

Thanks!

 

[biostud]

You could also get an external harddsik enclosure and run it through firewire or USB2.0, or if you have room put them in your current computer.

 

[mrtbig]

I don't have the room in my current case to add more hard drives. I have 4 of them in there now. As far as external enclosures, yes I considered that but the price of them and with so many cords, it would a lot cheaper if I could just get a case with a power supply and run the hard drives to my computer. If this is possible? No processor or anything else, just hard drives in the case and run cables to my computer?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: mrtbig
I don't have the room in my current case to add more hard drives. I have 4 of them in there now. As far as external enclosures, yes I considered that but the price of them and with so many cords, it would a lot cheaper if I could just get a case with a power supply and run the hard drives to my computer. If this is possible? No processor or anything else, just hard drives in the case and run cables to my computer?

You would need some way to get the PSU in the other cabinet to turn on, but I guess in theory it would work, albiet I would think of it as a bit clumsy.

 

[mrtbig]

Yea, it sounds like it, but I really have thought about it and it really is low cost to go this way and add a lot of hard drives. I just didn't know if I could do it this way? As for power I have seen cases with powersupplies and most of them have a power switch on the front of the case, (Do you need a motherboard for that?) Plus, most of them have a power switch on the back on the power supply, I thought I could just turn on when needed.

 

[mrtbig]

Also, since I have a processor and going to buy a case would it benefit me any to buy a motherboard as well and hook it up to my router on lan and share the drives that way or will it impact performance too much on a lan??

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: mrtbig
Yea, it sounds like it, but I really have thought about it and it really is low cost to go this way and add a lot of hard drives. I just didn't know if I could do it this way? As for power I have seen cases with powersupplies and most of them have a power switch on the front of the case, (Do you need a motherboard for that?) Plus, most of them have a power switch on the back on the power supply, I thought I could just turn on when needed.

The PSU won't turn on unless it's either connected to a motherboard, or you do some extra wirering yourself. (It's also used for those who need to get a watercooling system up and running for first the time) I also think there's a limitation on how long SATA cables can be.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: mrtbig
Also, since I have a processor and going to buy a case would it benefit me any to buy a motherboard as well and hook it up to my router on lan and share the drives that way or will it impact performance too much on a lan??

It will definately be a lot slower on 100mbit lan, I haven't tried 1Gb lan though.