Help identifying an older eSATA NAS/DAS?

[a_manifestation]

I have a couple of old NAS/DAS that are eSATA and can't find a manufacturer or any identifying information on them. They came with an eSATA card that is a Sonnet Tech product, unfortunately Sonnet Tech support says they don't know who made them. They appear to be from the same manufacturer. I did find a list of NAS manufacturers and went through each one's support pages looking for a match or something even close. After a year, it is time to ask experts.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Working on putting these in the farm's shop using several old hard drives from previous computers and to backup current computers.

Thanks in advance.

[BiotechBen]

4 minutes ago, a_manifestation said:

I have a couple of old NAS/DAS that are eSATA and can't find a manufacturer or any identifying information on them. They came with an eSATA card that is a Sonnet Tech product, unfortunately Sonnet Tech support says they don't know who made them. They appear to be from the same manufacturer. I did find a list of NAS manufacturers and went through each one's support pages looking for a match or something even close. After a year, it is time to ask experts.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Working on putting these in the farm's shop using several old hard drives from previous computers and to backup current computers.

Thanks in advance.

Do you have pictures of the bottom, usually there is some sort of sticker there that might give clues.

[emosun]

have you checked the date on those drives? you might be putting a lot more work into something thats far easier to just replace with an very small and cheap solution these days

[Jarsky]

Old hardware and a lot of effort for something no longer supported....if you have USB3 or better would it not be better to just get a single WD Easystore or something?

[a_manifestation]

On 12/7/2022 at 4:09 PM, BiotechBen said:

Do you have pictures of the bottom, usually there is some sort of sticker there that might give clues.

Sorry, no stickers on bottom or back. Well, just these small Made in China stickers and the barcode. No names. Didn't see any name on the board inside either. I have not opened them to see it the larger board has a name on it.

[SiForceRyan]

These look like some of the DAS or drive hot swapping units we have sold before. The 4 bay one looks different than some we have used. The brand names I can find are Copystars.com and ily.com. Look up other CD, DVD, and SATA drive duplicator manufacturers also. Most pricier DAS RAID solutions don't use universal 5.25" bay trayless SATA bays like these, usually they use drive trays and built in bays, but the duplicator brands do.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

I wanna know what's up with the RCA jacks?  

[Needfuldoer]

Those are the most generic external enclosures I've ever seen. There's probably a sticker that says ACME on them somewhere!

 

38 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

I wanna know what's up with the RCA jacks?  

My first guess is they're meant for the analog audio outputs on the back of a CD-ROM drive. That wasn't uncommon back in ye olde days.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

My first guess is they're meant for the analog audio outputs on the back of a CD-ROM drive. That wasn't uncommon back in ye olde days.

But they're SATA, SATA optical drives never did analog audio output.  (Even later IDE drives abandoned it.)

[Needfuldoer]

13 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

But they're SATA, SATA optical drives never did analog audio output.  (Even later IDE drives abandoned it.)

That's an old enclosure design, looks mid-to-late 90s to me. They probably just stuck newer controllers into it without updating the tooling.

 

I've seen disc duplication towers from companies like Disc Makers which look a lot like that.

 

I'm kind of surprised they're still in there, they could have been blanked off or just covered with a sticker. Maybe this was retrofit at one point.

 

@a_manifestationWhat does the inside of these things look like?

[a_manifestation]

On 12/16/2022 at 4:18 PM, Needfuldoer said:

That's an old enclosure design, looks mid-to-late 90s to me. They probably just stuck newer controllers into it without updating the tooling.

 

I've seen disc duplication towers from companies like Disc Makers which look a lot like that.

 

I'm kind of surprised they're still in there, they could have been blanked off or just covered with a sticker. Maybe this was retrofit at one point.

 

@a_manifestationWhat does the inside of these things look like?

I haven't opened them up beyond pulling out the drive trays. They are all similar. I will see if I can open up one of them.

I actually have three of these. I have a 2 bay, 4 bay, and an 8 bay. The 4 bay and 8 bay are identical in design except the 8 bay has 2 eSATA connections. I will take more pictures this weekend when I go out to the farm. I'll open them up and take pics of the insides as well.

Sorry for the delay on replies. I am packing to move out to the farm, trying to do things around the farm, spending time with my elderly mother who will also be moving soon, and juggling life in general.

My goal is to put a wifi mesh antenna on my amateur radio tower and get some wifi around the farm. Would be nice to share Internet between old farm house, my house, shop, and out buildings. Especially for security cameras.

Thanks again for all the replies.
-Robert

[a_manifestation]

Well, I opened them up today and took pictures. There is a small control board with the eSATA connection on the back and several SATA connections inside. There is also a power supply inside each system to run things. That is about all there is.
All the photos are from the top except the 8 bay system, I had to take it from the side.

I am hoping to get it to connect to a computer on my network and use it to back up things. Mostly old files, photos, videos, and game mods. Just more of an archive than anything actively being used.

Maybe we can figure out who made them and figure out how to get them recognized?
Thanks for all the input from everyone.
-Robert

[Blue4130]

15 minutes ago, a_manifestation said:

.

Maybe we can figure out who made them
-Robert

 

 

 

Right in the first picture. Icy dock. 

[a_manifestation]

On 12/30/2022 at 6:37 PM, Blue4130 said:

Right in the first picture. Icy dock. 

Thank you.
I have reached out to get any info on them. Hopefully I can get them hooked up and use them.

Thanks again to everyone's input.
-Robert