Multiple hard disk enclosure?

[DigitalNeoKnight]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is such a thing as a multi-harddrive enclosure. I need one that is spacious, has good cooling, and can support six 2TB usb/sata hardrives, assuming one even exist. I don't want it to act as a raid setup, I want each drive acting independently.

Thanks in advance for any info given.

 

[jefe323]

here is one that will hold 5, couldn't find any that hold 6

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/10467/cpa-318/Lian-Li_EX-50_Hot_Swap_External_HDD_Enclosure_5_Bays_-_35_SATA_HDD.html?tl=g12c273s677

 

[DigitalNeoKnight]

ok, that seems good enough. I can set the drives to act independently though right? Looking at it, it seems that I have to use raid anyway, but maybe the JBOD mode will work out ok.

 

[scotu]

6 Drives on one interface? I hope you don't need to use them all at once

 

[DigitalNeoKnight]

6 Drives on one interface? I hope you don't need to use them all at once

They will be used all at once eventually, but not for at least two to five or more years. I'm setting up a media center of sorts for someone, where all his movies are being streamed from his PC or laptop. The person needs to store 100 blu-ray disc, and 800 dvd movies. I figured three or six 2tb drives where enough, but seeing as how he has so many disc, and I don't want to be bothered anymore (at least not for a while) after I set everything up, I've decided to go with at least five drives. I wanted to go with a non-raid setup because I don't want a situation where the guy dumps everything to the drives, one drive goes bad and all a sudden the movies start to stream like crap.

 

[scotu]

As a media server, that shouldn't be an issue unless there are many people streaming at once. 100xBlu Ray and 800xDVD will take up over 11GB probably. It may also not be a bad call to get several smaller enclosures.

 

[jefe323]

As a media server, that shouldn't be an issue unless there are many people streaming at once. 100xBlu Ray and 800xDVD will take up over 11GB probably. It may also not be a bad call to get several smaller enclosures.

i think you meant 11 TB...

 

[scotu]

Yes, indeed. Excuse my mistake.

 

[DigitalNeoKnight]

As a media server, that shouldn't be an issue unless there are many people streaming at once. 100xBlu Ray and 800xDVD will take up over 11GB probably. It may also not be a bad call to get several smaller enclosures.

That's what I was going with originally. I was going to just buy six 2tb drives, get a usb hub and that's it. Then I thought it might be easier if the guy (who's not very computer savvy) could just dump all his movies onto one huge drive, instead of splitting everything up. The bluray movies are about 20gb when ripped, and 100x20gb is 2TB, so the first two drives would be enough for his current bluray collection.

 

[jfreggie]

You should still consider doing a RAID-5 array. 6x2TB drives will still give you 10TB of space which is currently more than enough space - plus gives you the added bonus of if a drive dies, its still recoverable. Unlike doing JBOD or seperate drive letters - you'll have to re-rip all the dvds/blu-rays.

 

[DigitalNeoKnight]

Best answer selected by DigitalNeoKnight.