Decadent_Spectre
Please look at the block diagram of the 24 HDD system. Two port multipliers are used in the enclosure. The 48 system is basically the same as this. NORCO DS-1220N has extactly the same structure as this enclosure (the same SiI3726 PM chip; apart from pricely hot-swappable drive bays).
24 HDD System
The third system consists of a main system with 12 storage drives in either a mid tower or 4U rackmount case and an external enclosure with 12 storage drives in another case. Port multiplier (PM) is used to support storage drives. The intended OS is
Windows Home Server.
or
Main System
- Mid Tower Case: Rosewill R6A34-BK ATX Mid Tower (4 x external 5.25", 2 x external 3.5", 5 x internal 3.5"), $45 with:
- Lian Li EX-23B Internal HDD Kit (turns 2 x 5.25" bay into 3 x 3.5" bay) x 2, $40.
or
- 4U Rackmount Case: CODEGEN 4U-500-CA 4U Rackmount Chassis (3 x 5.25" bay, 8 x 3.5" bay, 2 x 3.5" bay under the cross bar), $71 with:
- HDD Mounting Kit x 2, $3 or Lian Li EX-34B Internal HDD Kit (turns 3 x 5.25" bay into 4 x 3.5" bay), $35 for better cooling.
- PSU: Corsair VX550W, $90.
- CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4200+ ADO4200DDBOX 65W Brisbane 2.2GHz Socket AM2, $75.
- CPU Cooler: Stock Cooler, $0.
- Memory: CORSAIR TWIN2X2048-6400 DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $41 (after rebate at Newegg.com).
- Motherboard: BIOSTAR TF7025-M2 NVIDIA GeForce 7025 chipset microATX, $68.
- HBA: HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 4-port eSATA RAID Controller PCIe x4 Card supporting Port Multiplier, $165.
- KINGWIN ESAC-02 Internal SATA to eSATA 2-Port PCI Bracket x 2, $6.
- Graphics: GeForce 7025 (integrated in the motherboard chipset), $0.
- HDD: WD800JB 80GB PATA, $43.
- Addonics AD5SAPM 5X1 Internal SATA Port Multiplier (1 x SATA in, 5 x SATA out) x 2, $170.
- SATA cable x 11, $22.
- Total Cost: $763 for Tower; $752 for Rackmount
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Enclosure
- Mid Tower Case: Rosewill R6A34-BK ATX Mid Tower (4 x external 5.25", 2 x external 3.5", 5 x internal 3.5"), $45 with:
- Lian Li EX-23B Internal HDD Kit (turns 2 x 5.25" bay into 3 x 3.5" bay) x 2, $40.
or
- 4U Rackmount Case: CODEGEN 4U-500-CA 4U Rackmount Chassis (3 x 5.25" bay, 8 x 3.5" bay, 2 x 3.5" bay under the cross bar), $71 with:
- HDD Mounting Kit x 2, $3 or Lian Li EX-34B Internal HDD Kit (turns 3 x 5.25" bay into 4 x 3.5" bay), $35 for better cooling.
- PSU: Corsair VX450W, $67.
- KINGWIN ESAC-02 Internal SATA to eSATA 2-Port PCI Bracket x 2, $6.
- Addonics AD5SAPM 5X1 Internal SATA Port Multiplier (1 x SATA in, 5 x SATA out) x 2, $170.
- SATA Cable x 10, $20.
- KINGWIN ESAC-01 eSATA to eSATA 3' Cable x 2, $6.
- Total Cost: $354 for Tower; $343 for Rackmount
Cost of the Total System
- $1117 for Tower; $1095 for Rackmount (storage drives are not included)
Block Diagram
Each of the four eSATA ports of the host bus adapter (
HBA) is connected to a port multiplier (
PM) that supports 5 SATA drives. On the other hand, the southbridge (
SB) of the motherboard chipset supports 4 SATA ports. Each subsystem includes 2 port multipliers. Among 12 storage drives in each of the subsystems, 10 drives are connected to the two port multipliers and the rest 2 drives are connected to the southbridge.
Remarks
1) You need to modify the PSU of the enclosure so that it works without a motherboard (please read the article
Power Up an ATX PSU without a Motherboard ), or use
20-pin Power Supply Jump Start Connector (in this case you turn on/off the enclosure by the PSU switch).
2) The motherboard requirements are:
- IGP
- Gb LAN (preferably PCI Express)
- 1 x PATA/SATA port for the system drive
- 4 x SATA port for 4 storage drives
- 1 x PCIe x4 slot for a 4-port eSATA PM-aware host controller
Basically any decent microATX motherboard can be used for this system.
3) If the motherboard has
8 SATA ports and
2 PCIe x4 slots (e.g. ASUS P5B-VM DO), then you can add another 4-port eSATA host controller and hence can add two more enclosures, thus the total system supports up to
48 storage drives. This is the system described in the next subsection.
