Challenge: Best value multibay external enclosures & controllers?

[a.k.a.]

Hello everyone,

I am looking for your advice on the best value in an external enclosure setup. This is hard to get good advice on. Even if you just have a site to point me to, I'll take that as a useful bit of advice.

The purpose is to provide greater than 1TB backup space for a laptop that can control this enclosure either via an ExpressCard eSATA port (30-70MB/s transfer rate), or via a Gigabit-Ethernet port for NAS. I'm not willing to buy a setup that caps my storage at 1TB.

I have looked at the NAS transfer rate charts, and I'm not exactly impressed with the off-the-shelf designs in the lower end of the price range (15MB/s for the 321 or ReadyNAS), so I'm considering DAS through the SATA line.

How barebones am I willing to go?

1. I am looking for the entire diskless framework to come out well under $200, but anything below $300, if it adds considerable flexibility and performance, is something I'll consider seriously.

2. While it defeats the purpose of a secure backup, it is important enough to me to get costs down for the moment that I am happy to choose a diskless NAS that is capable of running on just one 1+TB HDD, with additional drives added later on.

3. I would prefer RAID1, I think, but that can be either on the software or hardware side. It's my assumption that JBOD-only enclosures mean I will need to back everything up two times, rather than once. I have access to Vista, Server 2008 and SBS 2008 as far as software controllers -- not WHS, since it's not part of the MS TechNet testbed offerings. I haven't looked at or priced the SteelVine solution, but it's very intriguing!

4. Another barebones scenario: If you can get good performance out of just a "backplate" enclosure and nothing more, I'm happy to put up with the noise. The obvious problem is that it needs a power source and potentially a controller. Or, if there's an extremely cheap way to do desktop NAS via SATA-SATA or Gig-E ports, I'm happy to consider it.

Now what's my ideal?

1. SAS or Uxx SCSI, with some sort of a SATA out port, and a software controller solution that I can run from the laptop.

2. 3-5 swappable (or best, hot-swappable) bays, with cheap adapters for all the spare 2.5" drives I've accumulated. Plus, a way to run that setup as a 2-bay RAID1 + 1-3 JBOD setup.

3. A fast NAS (over 30MB/s) at as low a price as your basic 2-bay RAID1 setup.

THANKS A MILLION!

a.k.a.

 

[thiggins]

If you want fast and cheap, then DAS is the way to go.
Take a look at the SansDigital enclosures.

 

[a.k.a.]

Just looked at them. You've used them?

Thankfully, Newegg seems JUST to have added a section for "external enclosures." It never had one until now that I could ever find. Makes things slightly easier to compare.

I'm trying to remember the really arcane details now. This is why I just find the whole DAS / enclosures scene inscrutable, I guess. But from what I do remember, I'm still a bit cautious about the SansDigitals, as you'll immediately see.

Are both SATA and eSATA capable of being external ports? (Newegg has separate categories, which is confusing me.)

Are both SATA and eSATA friendly on bandwidth when they are port multipliers? (eSATA is, but I can't even remember the maximum number of ports it handles without loss of performance.) Frankly, now that I've read some Newegg reviews, I'm more confused than when I started. I was under the impression that eSATA fed into more than one drive unproblematically, but one Newegg reviewer is saying: "eSATA only supports one device per port. JBOD, SAFE33 and SAFE50 create more than one drive so only the first drive will be seen without using a port multiplier."

What are these odd "SAFE 33 and SAFE 50" formats?

At one time, there was a risk that USB+eSATA output interfaces weren't true eSATA, but instead USB +SATA hookup "compatible." A year ago, many ran godawful slow. In your experience, am I going to get into trouble going with a dual interface? For instance, this SansDigital unit suffers the USB-speed interface bottleneck, or something like it: "I was very disappointed with the RAID function. I installed two WD 640gig drives and the RAID 0 speed was slower than the individual drives."
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111037

What is the deal with enclosures that are limited in maximum HDD capacity? Is that a simple matter of a firmware upgrade, or a chip limitation? Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with most of the SansDigital brand, which top out at 1.5TB. I hate to sound overly picky, but I really don't patronize products with "planned obsolescence." We don't need more IT waste in this world.

When it's this barebones, what makes the difference between an enclosure that is JBOD and RAID? Chip or firmware?

Thanks!

 

[00Roush]

Take a look at this article... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/silicon-image-brings-virtualization-esata,1610.html it might answer a few of your questions. Also take note of the benchmark section as a SansDigitals enclosure is tested.

00Roush

 

[a.k.a.]

Thanks, 00Roush. Yes, I've read that, but you're right, I needed to re-read it to understand the port multiplier dimension of SATA/eSATA.

Has anyone had good experiences with other brands?

Is this really the case? That SansDigital is the only game in town that users have experience with? And/or that this topic is just too mundane? The scenario I'm asking about here is probably the most common and important one there is -- a good multibay external enclosure for DAS.

Also, per the article, it looks like the SteelVine is not bare-basics-friendly after all. Two simple reasons:

1. I need to run everything through an ExpressCard eSATA adapter. It turns out, SteelVine only supports port multiplication if your eSATA controller does. Most ExpressCards, I'd assume, aren't sophisticated enough to handle port multiplication on their own. So, if I do port multiplication, it probably needs to be handled by the enclosure itself.

2. When you aren't running a RAID configuration through the SteelVine drives, the data transfer rates are every bit as slow as a USB drive. That's pathetic. Why pay hundreds of dollars extra?

 

[00Roush]

Well after doing a little bit of research it seems that some of the ExpressCards do support port multiplication.

My thought is for your basic needs I would just get two cheap eSATA enclosures and set them up as a RAID1 array. This should be fairly simple because the drives will be seen individually by the OS. A enclosure like this... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817173042 or this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145167 would probably work just fine. Also you could look at some of the cheaper enclosures but I am unsure of how well they would work as not many had been reviewed on Newegg.

If you are still looking for a multi-drive enclosure this might work... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332017. But I am not sure if it would be compatible with your ExpressCard for port multiplication. You should be able to set this up to use JBOD and each disk will be visible individually. Then you can setup the disks anyway you want using a software RAID.

I hope that helps a little.

00Roush

 

[a.k.a.]

How do you build DAS that can convert into NAS?

Thanks 00Roush,

The Rosewill looked reliable -- it was good to hear your vote there. But then you start thinking, "This is still a little silly -- $40 on a single-drive enclosure? And why are these enclosures always maximum 1TB? Isn't it better to just apply that $40-80 toward building blocks of a do-it-yourself DAS / NAS that gives you room to grow?"

But this is a little confusing. I've always thought in terms of either/or -- DAS or NAS -- but not how to build a DAS into a NAS down the line.

What kind of RAID controller card will work both with DAS and with NAS? Can you get a drive array set up inside a case, with just a RAID controller card, and run that off a laptop, and then later on, go out and buy motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc. to hook the same card into, and build a NAS?

Many thanks!

a.k.a.

 

[00Roush]

You bring up a good point about price... If you are just looking to fill a small need for now I say just get the cheap $20-$40 enclosures. If you are looking for something that can grow, I would go with something like the 5 bay enclosure I linked to.

Most of the multibay enclosures actually come with a PCIe eSATA card so if you ever wanted to use your enclosure for NAS purposes you could. Just setup a small server and use the included PCIe card instead of your ExpressCard. The drives could then be shared over the network from your server.

Just remember to use the multibay enclosures (port multiplier) you need a ExpressCard that is compatible. You never mentioned what card you have.

I am by no means an expert on this stuff so please don't hesitate to get a second opinion.

00Roush

 

[a.k.a.]

Most of the multibay enclosures actually come with a PCIe eSATA card so if you ever wanted to use your enclosure for NAS purposes you could. Just setup a small server and use the included PCIe card instead of your ExpressCard. The drives could then be shared over the network from your server.

Just remember to use the multibay enclosures (port multiplier) you need a ExpressCard that is compatible. You never mentioned what card you have.

Thanks, 00Roush. The cases themselves can't function as servers without CPUs, motherboards, etc., which won't fit. I didn't realize -- if I am understanding you correctly -- that you can take the PCIe cards out of these setups and put them in a different setup (with room for CPU, motherboard, etc.) I figured most of them are hardwired into the cases.

Best,

a.k.a.

 

[00Roush]

What I meant was that some of the multibay enclosures come with a separate PCIe Raid card (has two external eSATA ports) that you can install in a computer to use with the enclosure to ensure compatiblity. The enclosure itself does NOT have a controller card to my knowledge. The controller card would be in the computer that is connected to the eSATA enclosure. So in your case the controller card would be the ExpressCard in the laptop. The enclosure has the port multiplier which allows the controller card to access multiple drives over a single eSATA connection.

You are correct that the eSATA enclosures cannot function as a server by themselves. They need to be connected to a computer that has a eSATA controller card.

Not sure if that made sense or not... Maybe I will make more sense tomorrow... time for me to get some sleep.

00Roush

 

[a.k.a.]

Makes very good sense. I am now approaching enlightenment!

Ever hear that anecdote about the Zen master who walloped his pupils with a board when they were on the verge of enlightenment?

I have a feeling that's how my first server build is going to go.

Thanks, 00R!

a.k.a.

 

[a.k.a.]

Just goes to show you too, how much more subtle things are when you're buying online.

I've only ever seen pictures of the enclosures when pricing them -- never the PCIe cards that are included in the deal. Be nice if that were more obvious.

On the other hand: Suppose they'd shown the PCIe cards. I'd have thought, "Well, what use would that be to me? I need one that has the circuits integrated, so I can use it with a laptop!"

So finally I'm getting it -- You buy the enclosure, and look for one that's got a port multiplier (something -- circuit? interface?). The controller card can be either an included PCIe card, or a separate ExpressCard RAID controller.

a.k.a.