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strausd

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
2,998
1
Texas
If I needed to mount two drives in the empty optical bay and put both of them on RAID 0, would this and this be the only 2 things I would need? Also, with the Pro Caddy 2, would I need one of their PCIe cards? Their site says that a card is needed, but since I would be getting the RAID card, would I need to even get one of theirs or would the RAID card be all I need? They give three options for PCIe cards with the Pro Caddy 2: none, nonbootable PCIe card, and bootable card. So would I be good with just the areca 1210 and the Pro Caddy 2 without a card or would I need a separate card for the caddy?
 
If I needed to mount two drives in the empty optical bay and put both of them on RAID 0, would this and this be the only 2 things I would need? Also, with the Pro Caddy 2, would I need one of their PCIe cards? Their site says that a card is needed, but since I would be getting the RAID card, would I need to even get one of theirs or would the RAID card be all I need? They give three options for PCIe cards with the Pro Caddy 2: none, nonbootable PCIe card, and bootable card. So would I be good with just the areca 1210 and the Pro Caddy 2 without a card or would I need a separate card for the caddy?
You only need the Areca and a mount. No other card.

BTW, if you want to DIY one, it's possible, with say an old optical disk (DOA is ideal), by disassembling it for the metal plates. Then take one of them, and drill the necessary holes for 2x 3.5" HDD"s, and you're done.
 
Will that mount come with something to give power to the drives?
Assuming you mean the TransIntl mount, it indicates it does come with the necessary power cables.

DIY, you'd need to handle that with the following: SATA power splitter.

Plug it into the backplane cable for optical bay #2, and you'll have power for both drives. This is a simple and cheap way to do it, as there's no need to pass the data signal, as you're not using the ICH on the chipset. The ARC-1210 will take care of that part. ;)

This cable of course, does assume it's a 2009 system. Otherwise, you'd need a Molex to 2x SATA power Y splitter (here; works for '06 - '08 Intel MP's)
 
A bit off topic, but why are there so many pins on a SATA power connector? The first time I saw a SATA disk I assumed the smaller one was power and the larger one was data.
 
A bit off topic, but why are there so many pins on a SATA power connector? The first time I saw a SATA disk I assumed the smaller one was power and the larger one was data.
There's 3x voltages used; 3.3, 5, and 12 volts on 3x pins each. This is because each pin can't deliver enough power to meet the specification, so parallelism is is used to accomplish it. Ground pins are done the same way, but account for 5x pins (the remaining pin is an optional/reserved signal).
 
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