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extra storage - using a PC case???

K

Keebler

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
2,965
249
Canada
Hi there,

I've been obsessing about adding storage to my G5. I do audio and video work so I definitely need the space.

I already have 6 externals and another internal.

I've been looking at the sonnet fusion 400 and 500 with their related pci-x cards, but that may be out of my price range (although it looks to be what i need).

my question: i've seen posts with people suggesting using a PC case and a bunch of HDs. How would I make this work? I know to mount the HDs in the case and make sure the case has a strong power supply, but how would i connect to my G5? using an e-sata card and wires? would all HDs have to connect or could i create this port multiplier connection like the fusions have?

thoughts? suggestions?

Cheers,
Keebler
 
You could get several IDE to USB adapters (without the external casings, you can get them) and a couple of usb hubs, put in an atx power supply and rig everything up to that.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
You could get several IDE to USB adapters (without the external casings, you can get them) and a couple of usb hubs, put in an atx power supply and rig everything up to that.
Click to expand...

I have been thinking about doing this for ages. An old PC case w/ power supply, a handful of hard drives (I was thinking that 80gb units are cheap cheap now-a-days), say 5 to start, USB to IDE adaptors, and either a large USB hub or a few smaller ones.

Have OS X put them in a software RAID and use it for massive media storage. With a drill, some spare parts, and some inventiveness I think I could put 12 to 20 drives in a medium sized PC case. Assuming you used 80gb drives at about $50 each, and the USB to IDE (w/o power supply) connector was <$15, with 5 drives you're at $325, plus 2 USB2.0 hubs for about $25, and a free donor PC case and PSU and your up to $350 for a 400gb RAID (minus any redundancy losses depending on the RAID type you use) with lots of room to grow.

160gb drives for $75... could do nearly a terabyte for under $600. :drool:

Ok, sorry for the babble. :)
 
mrgreen4242 said:
160gb drives for $75... could do nearly a terabyte for under $600. :drool:
Click to expand...

If you're talking about that much money it'd probably be worth getting an old Athlon motherboard with a 1Ghz chip or a duron or something and shoving in a gigabit ethernet card and some cheap second hand pci ata/sata controllers.
 
sata's the way i'm thinking

Spanky Deluxe said:
If you're talking about that much money it'd probably be worth getting an old Athlon motherboard with a 1Ghz chip or a duron or something and shoving in a gigabit ethernet card and some cheap second hand pci ata/sata controllers.
Click to expand...


interesting spanky. this, i think, along the lines of what i'd like to create.
250 GBs are cheap now ($112 CDN). i could slam a few in. question is: how would this connect to my mac? or i guess it's more like a server, viewed over the network? i'd like to somehow just connect it directly.

somehow like this:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusion500p.html
 
If you have a SATA card with 4 external SATA connections, you could run 4 drives (as individuals) in a PC case to supply the power.

Anything else (port multiplexing or combining, network access) requires logic and hardware, so either get a PC pr linus machine and network it, or buy a readymade solution like Sonnet or Firmtek's. Most of os here on MR do not have to technical ability to roll our own RAID/Disk management hardware.

I think USB would be a poor choice for a cluster of drives; besides being half the throughput of Firewire 400, USB loads down the Mac's CPU to manage the USB traffic.
 
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