Turn old PC into HDD enclosure

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LightYagami

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Mar 27, 2015
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I have lying around 8 HDDs and instead of using a bunch of external cases and have lots of USB cables and power wires hanging around I would like to turn a PC case into a diy external HDD enclosure, the problem is that I'm not really sure how, and google didn't really solve and of my questions, all solutions out there were NAS related and I am not interested in that.

I would like a simple setup, but I'm not sure on the components, like is it enough a PC enclosure, a PSU, the drives and data cables? But then how do I connect to HDDs to my PC (a mac mini which only has USB 3.0 and thunderbolt connections).

Would I need a motherboard so I can connect all the HDDs via sata to it and to have the front power button working? Is that enough, or would I also need a cpu and ram? Also, is it possible to connect the back of the mobo male usb to a male usb on my mac?

I am really confused on the setup and like I said, I don't want a NAS, since i don't like FreeNAS and I'd rather not install Windows if possible.

Any solutions?

Thanks!
 
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Saberus

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Aug 23, 2013
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A possible option, as i don't see any other way without installing a motherboard and an OS:

Mount a power strip and USB3.0 hub inside the case, and contain the mess of wiring from the external USB enclosures in the case, with some usb-powered fans for airflow. Have only the connection to power and USB hub extend outside the case, and leave the drives on.

Alternately, there might be an external drive chassis that can hold the drives and hook into the thunderbolt port, and if I remember right Thunderbolt can even be daisy-chained.
 
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LightYagami

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The speed would degrade if using a usb hub and they are all internal hdds, so they need power and sata. How do those multi drive enclosure do it, like the drobos, do they have small mobos, cpus and ram?
 
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ssddx

ssddx

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May 27, 2009
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copied from your other thread (now deleted since it was a duplicate of this one)

basically, you'd want to make a NAS. or file-server. both are fairly similar really.

otherwise, instead of having lots of drives in lots of enclosures all you did is put all the drives in one enclosure with many data cables coming out.

without a board (or system) running raid on the drives... thats all you would have... seperate drives which are not linked in any way. if you did not want to use freeNAS you could always use hardware raid or a raid card and run windows on the system to hook up as a NAS in that manner. basically, you just made yourself a file server.

they do make raid enclosures for using your own drives but they are also expensive.

---

from reading this thread... a usb hub would work but it is correct that it would also heavily degrade in performance if more than one drive were being used at once and all drives would be treated seperately instead of one raid cluster.
 
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LightYagami

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DAS, that's what am I interested in building and I am surprised to not see any articles on the net, like no one tried to do this, there is no documentation, everything is NAS.
 
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giantbucket

giantbucket

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Nov 17, 2013
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you could just buy a pair of 4-drive docking stations, and go USB to your laptop. not pretty, but simple.

example:

2 of these www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA66K20J2030
17-576-013-TS


or just 1 of these http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA66K2046655
17-576-012-Z05
 
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popatim

popatim

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The problems isnt creating your own das, its that you have a mac mini with only USB and TB ports and no way to upgrade or add in a card which leaves us with pretty much just USB. The hub is the only low-cost answer and its going to be awful and so no real point in building anything thats going to run more than a couple of drives considering a 4tb external drive is just over $100
 
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Jareth

Jareth

Oct 22, 2021
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I want to use the Power Supply out of my old Computer Case to power the SATA Drives, & just transfer data via SATA to USB.
The problem is, when I search for an adapter, they all include the SATA Power cable.

See, I had figured to use an old Computer Case with working Power Supply, & then put a Chasis that adapts 5.25 inch bay slots to 4 or 5 3.5 slots, like this:

Then, I had thought to just use SATA to USB, & make my own female USB Slots somewhere on the front of my old case, though all the SATA to USB Adapters include the SATA Power connector.

Am I just using the wrong wording in my search queries?

Anybody help with a link?
 
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