Storage outside of my PC Case

[TenzoNakami]

Hi guys! I should be considered new to storage devices if compared to you guys. I am currently running a few assorted hard drives and now getting somewhat confused since I am upgrading my water cooling setup, that way I need to throw away all the big hard drives out of my PC case.

 

First thing, English isn't my mother language so please bear with me. Second, although I am currently a student of Computer Science, I am pretty much blinded about all of this Storage Solutions. So please approach me while knowing that I didn't know a single thing. Third, my budget is limited at the time, so I couldn't go all out like what you guys do on the Storage Ranking thread ?

 

Here we go! I currently have 1 WD Purple, 4 WD Red and 2 Samsung's SSD. I need to throw them all out of the PC case, which mean I need something with atleast 7 slots for all of my storage drive. And oh! Since they all have some sort of data in it, I want them to be accessible right away (No RAID setup's needed, except the 2 Samsung's SSD is in RAID already) Here's a list of what I was thinking. Again, since I do not knew anything, this is all just made up in dream.

 

Method 1:

Spoiler

Buying a NAS without drive. But I do not know if there is any under US$100 or somewhere nearby that price tags. To start with, I don't even know if a NAS would behave like what I want.

 

Method 2:

Spoiler

Buying the HAF Stacker (the expansion one) along with it's HDD upgrade. That way I need something to connect all of my storage drives inside and turn the outputs into a USB 3.1 Type C.

 

Method 3:

Spoiler

I will post this in LTT and let everyone to collaborate on this.

 

 

So uh, what do you guys think? My budget is pretty limited right now since I am upgrading my water cooling setup. I am willing to spend somewhere from 100-200 USD. And please remember, I need the HDD as is. They currently contains data and I do not want to lose them. Thanks for reading and g'day!

[Simon771]

I don't think you can move SSD out of your case, since you need to have disk with OS in the system connected with SATA cable.

For other drivers ... NAS seems like best solution. But it will only be able to handle 100MB/s read/write. Don't expect anything more, since it's limited to Gigabit port.

 

And you can't have games installed on your nas. NAS is usually used to store movies, music, pictures and other things like that. It's also handy for backups and FileHistroy (Windows 10).

NAS with 5 bays for disks won't be very cheap. I think it will be around 250$ or more.

[TenzoNakami]

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

I don't think you can move SSD out of your case, since you need to have disk with OS in the system connected with SATA cable.

For other drivers ... NAS seems like best solution. But it will only be able to handle 100MB/s read/write. Don't expect anything more, since it's limited to Gigabit port.

 

And you can't have games installed on your nas. NAS is usually used to store movies, music, pictures and other things like that. It's also handy for backups and FileHistroy (Windows 10).

NAS with 5 bays for disks won't be very cheap. I think it will be around 250$ or more.

Oops. I am sorry to make you misunderstood what is going on. I do not store the OS in those SSD that I want to move out. I store the OS on the Intel 750 which is won't be moved as it doesn't get in the way.

 

To have a maximum of 100MB/s read/write speed is a let down. I was looking at some NAS, and I've seen some with the USB 3.1 which is (if I'm not wrong) rated for 10gigabits per second. The storage will be used for mainly games and video encoding (After Effects + Premiere Pro). Do you have any other solutions?

[Mikensan]

What case do you have? There are 5.25 bay enclosures you can install. (I just noticed Icy Dock makes external enclosures as well.)

http://www.icydock.com/category.php?id=113

 

The SSDs might be small enough you can tuck on the other side of your case, behind the motherboard tray (have to remove other side panel).

 

You can get a USB 3 or eSATA enclosure, but they're not cheap. For the same price you can buy an older computer and use that for storage (Windows + Shares).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1DS3VU0410 $189 USD

For $250 you could buy a R710 lol, just too much money.

 

Can't hurt to check ebay, here's something in the US:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Icy-Dock-4-Bay-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-Silver-White-/253041648751?hash=item3aea75246f:g:584AAOSwxxdZZdDu

[TenzoNakami]

4 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

What case do you have? There are 5.25 bay enclosures you can install. (I just noticed Icy Dock makes external enclosures as well.)

http://www.icydock.com/category.php?id=113

 

The SSDs might be small enough you can tuck on the other side of your case, behind the motherboard tray (have to remove other side panel).

 

You can get a USB 3 or eSATA enclosure, but they're not cheap. For the same price you can buy an older computer and use that for storage (Windows + Shares).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1DS3VU0410 $189 USD

For $250 you could buy a R710 lol, just too much money.

 

Can't hurt to check ebay, here's something in the US:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Icy-Dock-4-Bay-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-Silver-White-/253041648751?hash=item3aea75246f:g:584AAOSwxxdZZdDu

I am currently using the be quiet! dark base pro 900. Adding anything else into the case is out of question, as I also had removed the 5.25" bays in order to fit my watercooling setup.

 

Yes, I could hide the SSD behind the tray, but I still need something for those big bulky hard drives.

 

Whoa, those stuff you recommended are great, but all of them are still using the usb 3.0 while I could use the 3.1 already. I am looking out for something fast!

[Mikensan]

12 minutes ago, TenzoNakami said:

I am currently using the be quiet! dark base pro 900. Adding anything else into the case is out of question, as I also had removed the 5.25" bays in order to fit my watercooling setup.

 

Yes, I could hide the SSD behind the tray, but I still need something for those big bulky hard drives.

 

Whoa, those stuff you recommended are great, but all of them are still using the usb 3.0 while I could use the 3.1 already. I am looking out for something fast!

USB 3 is 3-4gbps... Your hard drives will never hit that speed even in RAID. On a good day you should see... 150mbytes per second?

[Undergrid]

13 hours ago, TenzoNakami said:

Oops. I am sorry to make you misunderstood what is going on. I do not store the OS in those SSD that I want to move out. I store the OS on the Intel 750 which is won't be moved as it doesn't get in the way.

Even if your not storing the OS on the SSD's, I'm guessing your using your motherboard to RAID them.  That means you can't move them from SATA connections to USB or a NAS without wiping them and starting over.  That said, you can usually find somewhere to stick a couple of SSD's in anything but the smallest of cases.

[TenzoNakami]

5 hours ago, Undergrid said:

Even if your not storing the OS on the SSD's, I'm guessing your using your motherboard to RAID them.  That means you can't move them from SATA connections to USB or a NAS without wiping them and starting over.  That said, you can usually find somewhere to stick a couple of SSD's in anything but the smallest of cases.

Let's just get over with the SSD. The case I currently use do have two slots on the back of motherboard tray for SSD, but about the data inside the SSD.. It is currently empty. I only use the SSD for video encoding.

 

I am currently interested in what @Mikensan mentioned to me before, the IcyDock. It looks somewhat promising to me. Can I run it as something like JBOD?

[Mikensan]

30 minutes ago, TenzoNakami said:

Let's just get over with the SSD. The case I currently use do have two slots on the back of motherboard tray for SSD, but about the data inside the SSD.. It is currently empty. I only use the SSD for video encoding.

 

I am currently interested in what @Mikensan mentioned to me before, the IcyDock. It looks somewhat promising to me. Can I run it as something like JBOD?

The icydock is purely passthrough last I checked, so it's only JBOD. It's an "expander". If you're only putting mechanical drives in it will have plenty of speed if on USB3 or eSATA.

[TenzoNakami]

12 hours ago, Mikensan said:

The icydock is purely passthrough last I checked, so it's only JBOD. It's an "expander". If you're only putting mechanical drives in it will have plenty of speed if on USB3 or eSATA.

I didn't quite get this: Can I access the data from somewhere else like a NAS could? Or I need a real NAS?

 

EDIT: Oops. Looks like the IcyDock only able to support up to 10TB? My RED is 4TB each, and my Purple is 6TB. In total I have 22TB?

[Mikensan]

13 hours ago, TenzoNakami said:

I didn't quite get this: Can I access the data from somewhere else like a NAS could? Or I need a real NAS?

 

EDIT: Oops. Looks like the IcyDock only able to support up to 10TB? My RED is 4TB each, and my Purple is 6TB. In total I have 22TB?

 

Using the icydock is no different then plugging them into your motherboard. Or like using a USB external hard drive. It does nothing else but let Windows see your hard drives (passthrough).

 

It's 10TB disks, yours are 4TB so you're well below. Even when there are disks larger than 10TB easily available, likely a firmware update will fix that.

[TenzoNakami]

21 hours ago, Mikensan said:

 

Using the icydock is no different then plugging them into your motherboard. Or like using a USB external hard drive. It does nothing else but let Windows see your hard drives (passthrough).

 

It's 10TB disks, yours are 4TB so you're well below. Even when there are disks larger than 10TB easily available, likely a firmware update will fix that.

Thanks for the help! Since there is noone actually sells IcyDock here in my country and buying it from ebay or amazon would be a waste of shipping fee, and for the sake of a week or more waiting time, in the end I bought the Orico 9958U3. A good deal tho.

[Mikensan]

On 7/15/2017 at 10:46 AM, TenzoNakami said:

Thanks for the help! Since there is noone actually sells IcyDock here in my country and buying it from ebay or amazon would be a waste of shipping fee, and for the sake of a week or more waiting time, in the end I bought the Orico 9958U3. A good deal tho.

Ah ok, same thing effectively, hope it works out.