Computer DIY Mass Storage

[Josh380]

So this post kinda belongs in the DIY section, but also here since it's computer related.

Basically what I want to do is connect multiple hard drives to my computer. I don't have the cash for some fancy hard drive enclosure with RAID and only 4 bays, and NAS devices are also expensive and limited to physical space. Granted, some of these devices can run massive hard drives (I believe 4TB x 2 is the max at the moment, I could be wrong), but I have older hard drives that have some good usable space that are, well, still usable.

So here's what I'm thinking about doing. Picture 1 shows a neat little device that I've been using for a few years now that allows me to connect an internal IDE or SATA drive to my computer via USB and an external power supply (a brick power supply with one lead and molex connector). These have gotten pretty cheap over the last few years, and now run a mere $6 on eBay without the power supply, US stock.

You can probably see where I'm going with this by now. I figure, why not buy 4 or 5 of these to start with, get a USB hub like Picture 2, and use an old PC power supply to power my drives? Then, maybe find a computer tower to house it all, or fabricate some sort of rack for it.

I think this could work. I don't see why not. But I'm wondering if there are some details I'm missing here. Will the USB hub, for one, be able to handle the data flow of all drives at once..for that matter the computer itself, or will I have to limit it to a few at a time? I also wonder about hot-swapping...I know you're NEVER supposed to unplug any internal peripheral device without powering the system down first..does this apply here since I'm not using a motherboard? Incidentally, the USB hub pictured notes that it supports hot-swapping.

I should note that I have a Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF, Intel i5 4590 @ 3.3 GHz, with 8 GB of RAM, ATI Radeon 1 GB GPU, running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I don't think it makes a difference here, but I have the stock power supply in this system, not the 315w supply. Also, the power supply will be connected to it's own power strip with an On/Off switch, so I can shut off the drives when not in use.

 

[poltergeisty]

Your computer has three SATA connectors. Do you need more than three hard drives? Actually, one port would be the OS drive so you have two extra internal hard drives capabilities. This would be the better route in terms of speed and bandwidth.

Going USB with a USB hub means you have a total of 640 MBps of bandwidth available shared between all hard drives using USB 3.0. So depending on what one HDD is doing versus another, you may not have this speed. If one drives is being used at a time then expect full USB 3.0 speed. To be honest, I've never seen a massive 640 MBps with USB 3.0 thumb drives. Maybe 50-80 MBps so I don't understand the so-called USB 3.0 spec. Heck, my SSD drive is around 550 MBps unless I use momentum cache which uses the RAM.

Hot swapping is possible, but you should always use the option in the task bar to safely remove a device. Trouble is, you'll have a bunch of HDDs so you'll need to know which one is which. So for starters, I would plug in one drive at a time and assign a drive letter to that drive way up there past J or something. Then write the drive letter on the HDD with a magic marker. Reason why you should assign a drive way up the chain is so that it sticks with the drive and not change all the time when you constantly add/remove the drive and power it off. I haven't done this, but the drive letter should stick. Use Disk Management to do this. Right click the My Computer icon and select Manage.

If you're going to use a computer PSU for power, you'll need to jump start it. Read this: How to Jump a PSU | bit-tech.net

If the PSU has colored wires then simply connect the green wire to a black wire. Doesn't matter what black wire, they are all ground. But the green wire is indeed the fourth wire as shown in that website I linked to and is the PS_ON sensor wire.


Yes, this will work, but if the drives are all being used at once expect some very slow speeds. It really would be better to use onboard SATA or even a PCI-e card with extra SATA connectors. Preferably SATA III. But of course you'd need room in your PC for all of the HDDs. If I were to do this myself, and that's the only computer I had to work with, I'd be more inclined to use a PCI-e card with a bunch of SATA III connectors and see how I would run all of the SATA cables to the outside. I might drill a small one half inch hole in the back of the computer or something for all of the cabling. Then I'd use the external PSU for power since the internal PSU more than likely won't be able to handle all those drives. OEM computers are built around a PSU that's only meant for the computer and with no room for improvement. If I were to go the PCI-e SATA route I'd compare prices between Amazon and eBay based on reviews and use this site to gauge whether there's a high quality amount of reviews. www.fakespot.com I do this all the time and find eBay has the cheaper price often times with free shipping so no Crime, I mean Prime required. And the funny thing about some things I order on eBay, it's shipped from Amazon! LOL I don't care really. So long as I got my item and paid less for it. I don't buy enough on Amazon to merit Prime so I don't do it.

 

[poltergeisty]

Looks like you can use fakespot with Walmart and Steam now. Keep in mind this is NOT a rating of the product its self, but of the review quality on whether there's fake reviews or not, i.e deception. A lot of companies engage in the practice of paying people to write fake positives reviews so this website helps weed that out. So if a product has a 4 star rating and the reviews come back as a B, it's probably a good product. Though, one can always get a lemon. Then the moronic people write a bad review. I'd just do a simple return and see if the replacement works. If not, then write a piss poor review. I see some stupid crap on Newegg along those lines. And a lot of one egg reviews because the consumer either didn't know what he was buying or doesn't know how to use it correctly. So in their beady eyed rodent-sized brains they leave a bad review.

 

[bharvey2]

I agree with Poltergeisty. SATA would be the better option. If you need or want to have them connected all of the time, external SATA cards are available if you case is too small. On several of my work computers, I install both 2.5" and 3.5" drive bays and I can pop drives in and out at will.

 

[Josh380]

Well, the problem is, in fact, physical space. My motherboard may have room for two more hard drives, but there is ZERO physical space for those drives in the case. Remember, I have a Small Form Factor (SFF) case. I suppose I could run SATA cables from the inside out, but I'd still need a place to mount the drives. I figured using another empty case (or fabricate one) would at least give me a place to mount the drives and clean things up a bit. Not to mention the fact that not all of my drives are SATA.

As far as speed is concerned, with just one of these, I've noticed a much faster transfer rate via USB then my Linksys NAS 200 (modified for better cooling). For example, moving one movie from my internal drive to the NAS took nearly 3 hours. USB, 10 min. I know things will slow down with more drives though.

Thanks for the suggestion of marking the drives. That thought did cross my mind..I was even considering labeling the hub switches.

 

[Josh380]

I've seen some people put a switch between the green and black wire..sort of an on/off switch for the PSU. If I wanted to do that instead of doing the jumper or splicing the two together, what kind of switch would I want to use? And actually looking at the motherboard, I only have one available SATA connector without going the PCI-e direction, since my primary hard drive and DVD drive take up the other two.

 

[bharvey2]

Any SPST switch should work. Most that you'd ding at an electronics house will be rated at least for a few amps at least. Find one that handles 10A and you should be fine. You might need to get an add in SATA card.

 

[Josh380]

Any SPST switch should work. Most that you'd ding at an electronics house will be rated at least for a few amps at least. Find one that handles 10A and you should be fine. You might need to get an add in SATA card.

12v I assume?

 

[poltergeisty]

You don't need a heavy duty high amp capacity switch. That I'm most sure of since all the PS_ON sense wire does is conduct to ground. You're not passing a lot of watts though that circuit or anything. It's like turning the key in an ignition.

I'd just splice the two wires together and use the already built-in switch on the PSU its self. I'm sure most if not all PSUs have a switch. Every PSU I have ever used had one. Though, come to think of it. An OEM PSU may not. I think my parent's Optiplex does.

If you need a switch then just find a SPST on eBay and call it a day.

If you are thinking of fabricating a hard drive bay, then you could do that for a SATA PCI-e card solution where you'd run the cabling to the outside with extra long SATA cables. But you indicated you also have PATA in the mix so the USB option would probably be the way to go. Or you can get a SATA PCI-e card and a PATA PCI-e card. But I think you only have one PCI-e x16 slot. But, it will probably be much faster than USB especially with using multiple HDDs on a USB hub.

 

[bharvey2]

12v I assume?

Many small toggle switches I've seen are rated 3A or 10A and much higher than 12V unless they're automotive only. As Poltergeisty mentioned, you don't need one unless you want one. You could splice the sense wires and use the native PSU switch. It's up to you.

 

[Josh380]

Unfortunately this particular PSU doesn't have it's own on/off switch. The wires are spliced together for now. I've got a 20mm round spst switch on it's way. If I happen to get a case with a power switch that's not momentary I'll use that.

 

[Josh380]

So after today here's what I've come up with. Pics below.

Craigslist $10 buy, Lepa ATX case with Soft Touch front (ooh la la). 3 5.25" bays, 3 2.5" bays, and 3 3.25" bays. Two fans in the front blowing on the drives to keep em nice and cool, both wired individually to 12v lines. I made use of the square 4 pin connector since I wouldn't be using that anywhere else, to power the fans. Did the usual QC cleanup on the wires. I may need to upgrade the power supply if I want to cram a few more drives in here, as I only have the floppy drive connector left, which I'll need an adapter for to power anything else. There are a few SATA to USB adapters missing from the mix, but they're on the way. Basically all the USB cables will be coming out of the back, or not, depending on whether I mount the hub on the inside or outside. The case had a removable front panel to allow more air flow which I thought was cool, and I think my hard drives will too.

 

[Josh380]

*edit on the above* 3 3.5" bays.

A side note, I'm thinking of wiring a 12v RGB LED strip for the inside of the case.

 

[bharvey2]

Josh380, Is it up and running yet? As an aside, I see a guitar effects pedal on the floor. What type is it?

 

[Josh380]

Not as of yet. I'm still waiting for the USB hub and other SATA to USB adapters to arrive. The guitar effects pedal is my Zoom GFX 4. Love this pedal.

 

[bharvey2]

I've had a Zoom GFX 5 for about 10 years. It's pretty much replaced the other, individual pedals I have. I especially like the built in drum tracks.

 

[Josh380]

I've had a Zoom GFX 5 for about 10 years. It's pretty much replaced the other, individual pedals I have. I especially like the built in drum tracks.

I got my GFX4 used on ebay for $30. I bought it just for the EVH effects.

 

[bharvey2]

Well, you beat me hands down on price. I bought mine new. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of a library of effects available for it that I can find. I've had to hand (well, hear) tune each to get the effect chain I'm looking for. No real regrets though.

 

[Josh380]

UPDATE:

USB hub came in today. I decided to mount it on the back of the case, for easy access and to keep it hidden. It wasn't planned but the ports happened to line up perfectly with the empty slots.

 

[Josh380]

So the wiring is complete. There just happened to be a 20mm hole already pre-cut in the back of the case, almost as if it was meant for that particular switch.. Made for easy mounting of the switch. I had to add another 12v power supply for the fans. For some reason tapping the power directly from the 12v lines gave me nothing. Meter showed zero volts on the 12v lines as well. That's ok. I might've needed another power source anyway to run other 12v accessories.

I've also renamed the drives in Windows to Drive 1, 2, and 3. Unfortunately now in order to see all the drives I have to power on the External Drive Unit (EDU) before I power on my computer. If I don't, for some reason the computer doesn't see the SATA drive, only the USB drives.