Re: FireWire Bridge board + 19" rack mounted drives
- From: "no-spam2@xxxxxxxxx" <no-spam2@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:57:47 -0700
On May 30, 8:10 pm, dg <david.good...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
(reply via email)
I just recently noticed a reply message in my email, but since that
account is really just used for spam I seldom read it and prefer to
get public replies (so others can join in as well).
Anyway, you have good comments which I've given some thought:
Firewire bridge-board:
I've looked up the enclosure you mentioned
(http://www.ioi.com.tw/products/proddetail.aspx?ProdID=1030090) and
yes, it does indeed seem to have the options of two drives; either ATA
or SATA.
Having read through the specs I can see that this is nothing more than
an enclosure with a dual (RAID) Firewire 800 bridge-board which is
available on its own from the same company
(http://www.ioi.com.tw/products/proddetail.aspx?ProdID=1010027).
However, as you point out it doesn't have USB.
It's not that I really need USB right now, but I thought it might come
in handy for a situation such as if I want to connect the drive to
another computer than my own, which might not have Firewire.
As for Firewire 400/800 I have a question:
Is Firewire 800 backwards compatible? In other words: if the hard-
drive interface only has Firewire 800, can it be used with a computer
that has Firewire 400 ports?
I know that the Firewire 400 and 800 connectors are different, but as
far as I know it's possible to get cables (or adapters) to allow for a
Firewire 400 cable to be plugged into a Firewire 800 socket.
If Firewire 800 is backwards compatible with Firewire 400 a bridge
board with Firewire 800 and USB will do.
OWC bridge-boards:
I already have a couple of external drive enclosures from OWC, the
Mercury Elite Pro-AL (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World
%20Computing/MEFW912UAL1K/) which has Firewire 400, 800 and USB 2.0.
But instead of wasting two perfectly working enclosures I'd rather
sell them to someone else and buy a new dual bridge interface
specifically for my new project.
I've already contacted OWC about the bridge board, but they don't sell
them separately. I was thinking about the one for their RAID drive,
which supports two (ATA) drives, has Firewire 400, 800 and USB 2.0
(http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/
MEFW912AL2/). Scroll to the bottom of the page for a picture of the
connectors.
Unfortunately they won't tell me who produces their interfaces
either :-(
I will however open up one of my own OWC enclosure to see if there's a
company name printed on the circuit board and see if I can track it
down on the Internet, but there may be a chance that they're custom
designed for/by OWC and aren't for sale elsewhere.
Enclosure:
As for the enclosure itself my plan is to use a standard, empty 19"
rack enclosure, then drill all the necessary holes myself, mount a
power supply and find some smart way of mounting the (two?) hard
drives so as to reduce noise, but without adding heat.
I wasn't able to locate the Monarch ready to use enclosures you
mentioned, but it shouldn't be too much work turning an empty 19" 1U
high aluminum enclosure into something that'll hold the two drives,
power switch on the front panel, several ventilation holes and holes
on the rear panel for the connectors etc.
I'll keep in mind your suggestion about getting a high air-volume fan,
and perhaps also look into a temperature controller circuit so that
the fan only kicks in when it's needed (just like in my Powerbook).
The OWC enclosures I already have work fine, but the Samsung drive I
have vibrates an awful lot, and there isn't much room in the enclosure
to modify it for vibration removal. And since I prefer a tidy setup
instead of one consisting of several metal boxes, several wires and
power supplies, a single 19" enclosure with everything included might
be a better solution. And by designing it myself I can dampen the
noise any way I want :-)
Talking about the OWC enclosures. One of the reasons I bought them was
because of the cool design. They have that PowerMac G5 look, which
also matches the "patterned holes" design of my Powerbook (the left
and right hand sides of the keyboard).
I might design the front panel of the enclosure with holes like that
and a silver exterior.
Conclusion:
So far it looks like dual drive support only comes in SATA:
Firewire 800/USB 2.0 to dual SATA: (http://www.ioi.com.tw/products/
proddetail.aspx?ProdID=1010065)
Firewire 800/USB 2.0 to dual SATA:
(http://www.ioi.com.tw/products/proddetail.aspx?ProdID=1010073)
Firewire 800/USB 2.0 to dual SATA:
(http://www.ioi.com.tw/products/proddetail.aspx?ProdID=1010081)
Then I can buy a new SATA drive, and for my existing (Samsung 400 GB
ATA drive) I probably need an ATA to SATA adapter board (http://
www.ioi.com.tw/products/prodcat.aspx?ProdCatID=101&HostInterfaceID=2010)
Unless I find out about OWC's bridge-boards (in which case I can just
buy a second ATA drive) I'll have to go for SATA and the ATA-SATA
adapter, but from your previous postings (if I haven't misunderstood
them) I'm not much at loss for performance anyway, because the drives
in question will be 7200 RPM drives and not 10 000 RPM. And I assume
that a direct, internal connection of a SATA drive will be much more
effective than the same drive via Firewire.
Hard drive noise:
Most drives these days do indeed have fluid bearings, but the drives
you mentioned all have much lower capacities than the one I've got
(400 GB). Lower capacity drives have fewer drive platters, which in
turn means less noise.
I was disappointed by the Samsung, because having read that it would
be very quiet I expected something different. I agree that it doesn't
make that much noise on its own, but the heavy vibration makes it
noisy, so perhaps, in a better suited enclosure, mounted in a better
manner than the standard screws directly to the metal I might be a lot
better off.
Cooling:
You mentioned liquid cooling as an option. I don't know much about
that kind of thing, but I suppose you're referring to this:
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=575&name=Water-Cooling
I agree that it might be risky to use something like that along with
expensive electronics, and that's just what it'll be, because in the
same 19" rack, most likely below this 19" rack enclosure for the hard-
drives will be synthesizer modules etc. I don't think I want to risk a
leakage and thus short circuiting several synth modules.
A good fan will probably do, and perhaps a couple of heatsinks, though
in a 1U high rack enclosure I don't know if that would work very well.
Hmmm... perhaps on the sides of the drive, in addition to rubber-band
mounting them so as not to have any physical contact with the
enclosure.
Phew! How does all of that sound?
If the dual SATA bridge-board with an ATA to SATA adapter will do I'm
ready to go. There's only one thing left: independantly powering up/
down the two drives.
Since one of the drives won't be used that much, I'd prefer not to
power it up unnecessarily, thereby giving it a longer life.
So what options do I have for this? I could of course have a separate
power switch for each of the drives, which would mean 3 power switches
on the front panel:
1) On/off for the internal power supply
2) on/off for drive one (connected to one of the drive's power lines)
3) on/off for drive two (connected to one of the drive's power lines)
But that's a bit too "home made" for my taste.
Is it possible to control each drive's power (spin up/down) via
software on the Mac? If yes, I could simply have a single power switch
(turning on/off the power supply), then tell the Mac to spin up/down
the drive I wanted to use.
.
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