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macstatic

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 21, 2005
2,057
175
Norway
I'm looking for a bridge board which takes four SATA III hard drives and has Firewire 400 & 800, eSATA and USB 3.0 ports. Several hard drive enclosures seem to use the same one as you can see below.
Does anyone know who manufactures and/or sells this (or similar) bridge board?


OWC Mercury Pro rack
owc.png


Orico 9648rusi3
orico9648.png


Orico 9849rusi3
orico9649.png


RAIDage GAGE104U40SL-SAUF
raidage.png


Newertech Voyager Q3
nwt_voyager_q3.jpg
 

Would any of these do? Unfortunately none of them have USB 3 support though :(

For 5 drives RAID0/1/3/5/10/JBOD.... then add this SATA RAID controller
So this controller connects to the 4 SATA hard drives and gives me a "multiplied" output which connects to any bridge board (such as one of the above in your first link)?

Will it work with any of those boards or does it have to support port multiplication (in case only their UF-SATA202 will do the trick). Unfortunately that board doesn't have an eSATA output connector, so would that mean I'd have to use the SPM393PS-SEH in addition to that bridge board?
Seems like an awfully complicated setup and I was hoping for a single board which would do it all, hence my reference to those enclosures in my earlier posting (locating their origin seems a daunting task however).



That would be for USB-3 equipped Macs allowing them to attach an external eSATA device, right? But not needed it I get a bridge board with a USB 3 output I assume.
 
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JBoD or RAID with eSATA | FireWire | USB3.0 solution

None of the list combo interface boxes at the 1st post allows you to have a JBOD mode

I mean truly JBoD - Just Bunch of Drives.

For JBOD mode - Here is how

Get this http://www.datoptic.com/sata-5-sil3726-port-multiplier.html
Connect to Five SATA drives - you can fancy it up with trayless rack here.
I suggest the bottom fan tray-less to keep the HDD's temp lower.

Now you have eSATA - JBOD - (it needs eSATA support PM host)

To add USB3.0/USB2.0 interface use this USB3.0 to eSATA adapter support Port Multiplier in Windows and MAC

Now you have eSATA and USB3.0/USB2.0 JBOD

To add FireWire/USB2.0 interface use this FireWire/USB2.0 bridge support Port Multiplier in Both Windows and MAC

Now you have eSATA USB3.0/USB2.0 and FireWire in truly JBOD - you system will show Five Individual drives


For RAID mode - shows up as a SINGLE drive. No drivers, no software hardware RAID - Here is how:

Use this Driver-less RAID controller five drives
and this eSATA/FireWire/USB bride
 
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