Installing more than 4 hard drives on 1 computer

[hyperdimension]

I've accumulated many hard drives over time and want to be able to connect most or all of them to my PC, instead of having to unplug and connect whenever I need something on a particular drive. My PC motherboard has only 4 SATA ports, one of which needs to be for the operating system.

 

I also want to use RAID-like software (e.g. snapraid.it and/or drivepool) for data redundancy to prevent data loss in case of drive failure. e.g. 3 physical drives can appear as one big drive and a total failure of one physical drive would not result in any loss of data. I've had countless problems of data loss over the years, and I've read that as hard drive manufacturers keep trying to squeeze more data storage space into the same limited physical space, reliability is going to continue to decrease. So it makes sense for us users to introduce redundancy for data that we don't want to be losing, which means the need for many physical drives.

 

I've seen hard drive docking stations that can hold 2, 3, or 4 drives and connect via a USB port, but I think a SATA interface may be more reliable and performant.

 

I think the best solution is to use something like a multi-port SATA expansion card. Here's one that allows for an additional 8 drives:

 

Marvell Chipset 8 Ports SATA 6GB PCI Express Controller Card PCI-e to SATA 3.0 Converter Supports NCQ & Port Multiplier FIS

 

Where in Bangkok could I find something like this card?

 

[Jdietz]

Here is something alike:

 

http://www.lazada.co.th/asmedia-pci-express-to-esata-30-sata30-6gbs-multiplier-11025222.html

 

2 external, 2 internal SATA ports. 

[Crossy]

I've not seen anything with quite so many ports, a look in the smaller places in Fortune may yield results.

 

It's also worth dropping Thomas at InvadeIT a mail, he doesn't have anything listed but may have a supplier.

 

[Chicog]

I would suggest a Drobo, which can handle mix and match drive configurations and will take care of data protection for you.

[ballbreaker]

Have you thought about using NAS?

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[hyperdimension]

2 hours ago, Jdietz said:

2 external, 2 internal SATA ports. 

 

Thank you, it would be an option. It would be better if there were more ports. To use the 2 eSATA ports I'd need to additionally buy eSATA to SATA cables, and I'd have to place the attached drives externally.

 

[hyperdimension]

2 hours ago, Chicog said:

I would suggest a Drobo, which can handle mix and match drive configurations and will take care of data protection for you.

I've just had a look at Drobo, and it looks like an attractive solution, especially with the hassle-free data protection features. Though it's expensive (ranging from 349 to 640 USD), and the drives cannot be read by any system other than another Drobo.

 

[hyperdimension]

2 hours ago, ballbreaker said:

Have you thought about using NAS?

That would be an enclosure that provides access to the storage via a network interface, right?

I guess there are many types of NASs out there, but are there any that allow you to install your own drives of various sizes, and also implement RAID-like data protection?

 

[Crossy]

I use unRAID from Lime Technology a Unix (FreeBSD) based NAS, allows any mix of drive sizes, the only constraint being that the parity drive must be the equal to the biggest drive in the array, look here http://lime-technology.com/

 

You can try it out for free but obviously you'll need a PC to run it on.

 

I bought a Pro licence many years ago, still receiving updates currently got 10 assorted drives attached totalling 14TB of protected storage, 6 on the mainboard and 4 on a SATA PCI which I acquired lord only knows where.

 

The latest version also permits the use of Dockers and VMs on the same hardware, so your NAS can do other things whilst it's not busy serving your media. Mine keeps my No-IP address current amongst other things. It spends most of its time quietly humming away in the corner of my workshop with the drives spun down using very little power.

 

From the Lime Technology website, it's no longer just a NAS:-

 

Quote

What was once an operating system designed to give you ultimate control over your storage now extends that benefit to all of your computing hardware and software.  unRAID Server OS 6 is a scalable, consumer-oriented, server operating system.  Traditional approaches to personal computing technology place limits on your hardware’s capabilities, forcing you to choose between a desktop, media player, or a server.  With unRAID, we can deliver all of these capabilities, at the same time, and on the same system.

 

[thedemon]

Be careful of any SATA card with a port multiplier that supports greater than 5 drives. It is dependent on proprietary drivers that won't be supported by many variants of software RAID. In years gone by I have spent hours of frustration with this.

 

Also, if that card fails you will need another card with an identical chipset otherwise you can't access the array.

 

Nowadays for home media, I use Windows Storage spaces (parity). It is very resilient and not hardware dependent. I have a total of 20 HDD's all in basic (& quite cheap) USB3.0 enclosures. I suffered a drive failure a couple of weeks ago and it was a 10 minute job to swap out the drive with the data remaining online throughout. Didn't even require a reboot.

 

With Storage Spaces you can even mix SATA, eSata and USB within the same storage pool. Or if necessary, pull all the drives from a pool, plug them into another Windows machine (using any interface) and Windows will automatically recognise the array.

[thedemon]

To answer the question in your op about where to find such a SATA card in Bangkok. You can try here:

 

http://www.sourcerplus.com/store/

 

Their shop is on a small soi off Nam Wong Wan but you can communicate with them on the phone or by email. I found the owner to be friendly and knowledgeable but it is 3-4 years since I have dealt with them.

 

[Chicog]

15 hours ago, hyperdimension said:

I've just had a look at Drobo, and it looks like an attractive solution, especially with the hassle-free data protection features. Though it's expensive (ranging from 349 to 640 USD), and the drives cannot be read by any system other than another Drobo.

 

I've got two.

I don't worry about where else the drives can be read, if you have to add space you just plug in a bigger drive, it's all hot swap.

Then, if you want to, you can recycle the old ones.