Cable Management advice

[79wjd]

Does anyone have any advice for cable managing this better? I'm not really sure how to handle the SATA cables decently. I've tried tying them all together, and that's slightly better although it's still a mess. Obviously a new case would be best and I'd love to get myself an R4/R5, but I don't really feel like spending so much money on a new case. Ideally I would be able to manage it without spending anything, although I'd consider buying some replacement SATA cables -- I was thinking going with some round SATA cables. 

 

I only have an old picture before I tied the SATA cables together, but it's still pretty bad and I'm not happy with it. 

[KuJoe]

It doesn't look bad to me. I would just grab some velcro and wrap them together just do they aren't all over. If you want to spend some money then the round cables might be better and get appropriate lengths to reduce the amount of excess cable slack.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

It doesn't look bad to me. I would just grab some velcro and wrap them together just do they aren't all over. If you want to spend some money then the round cables might be better and get appropriate lengths to reduce the amount of cable slack.

I already tied them all together, but I'm still not really happy with it. I was thinking about round cables and I may end up going with some, but at the same time I also don't want to spend like $20~ on SATA cables. I need to do something because it is bothering me a bit, but $20 on SATA cables vs. $70~ for a new case doesn't seem worthwhile (but then again, neither does spending $70 to get something that looks a bit nicer when it's basically out of sight). 

[Zero_Hour]

Make the sata cables go in series, I'll try to find a pic for ya. 

[MrWazoo]

what are you running those six drives in, is it a raid array?

[Zero_Hour]

[Zero_Hour]

Just now, lopj245 said:

Or fold the sata cables then zip tie them to shorten them. 

[Zero_Hour]

Just now, lopj245 said:

Or fold the sata cables then zip tie them to shorten them. 

[79wjd]

7 minutes ago, MrWazoo said:

what are you running those six drives in, is it a raid array?

JBOD 

4 minutes ago, lopj245 said:

I basically have that now. They come off the drives and all go straight down to the bottom of the case where I've pushed the cables against the back wall (although there's no tie down points there), they then run up towards the motherboard and stick out and go into the connectors (which are unfortunately not 90º ports) -- four 90º connectors for the bottom row would probably make things look a bit better. 

[flibberdipper]

It looks fine to me. Granted, the cables in my NAS are a LOT cleaner, but I'm using a consumer board and not a server board.

 

[79wjd]

16 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

It looks fine to me. Granted, the cables in my NAS are a LOT cleaner, but I'm using a consumer board and not a server board.

 

The 24 pin draped across the motherboard is the least of the issues imo. You also have less drives, but more importantly, your drives face towards the rear side panel. The biggest issue is that my drives face the back of the case making cable management difficult. That's one of the main reasons I want to get a Define R4/R5, but spending that kind of money on a new case that's basically in a closet seems stupid. I mean if I could upgrade my Source 210 and like $20 for a better case with support for a lot of drives I would definitely consider that....but I don't see that as being a likely possibility. 

[flibberdipper]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

You also have less drives, but more importantly, your drives face towards the rear side panel. The biggest issue is that my drives face the back of the case making cable management difficult. That's one of the main reasons I want to get a Define R4/R5, but spending that kind of money on a new case that's basically in a closet seems stupid. 

That is true. But on the other hand, this will eventually be at least a 4 drive system. And I am not looking forward to that.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

That is true. But on the other hand, this will eventually be at least a 4 drive system. And I am not looking forward to that.

I don't think it would look any worse with four drives since four of your sata ports are all facing the correct direction. If you were to add two more drives on top of that I think it would actually look quite a bit worse, but still pretty good since most of the mess will be hidden behind the motherboard tray. 

[flibberdipper]

11 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

I don't think it would look any worse with four drives since four of your sata ports are all facing the correct direction. If you were to add two more drives on top of that I think it would actually look quite a bit worse, but still pretty good since most of the mess will be hidden behind the motherboard tray. 

truuuuu