Re: eSATA cases?

Manuel Reimer <> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> there are several nice SCSI hard drive cases from Sun. Does Sun plan to
> also offer a eSATA case? Or are they already available?
>
> CU
>
> Manuel
>

Are you thinking of something like the J4200 disk array? Holds 12 SAS or
SATA disks.

http://www.sun.com/storage/disk_syst...4200/index.xml

We have a couple of these doing service for our databases, working under
zfs.

--
Dr Tristram J. Scott
Energy Consultant

Manuel Reimer schrieb:
> Tristram Scott wrote:
>> Are you thinking of something like the J4200 disk array? Holds 12 SAS or
>> SATA disks.
>
> No, I'm thinking of a case for *one* hard drive like this one:
> http://muuseum.at.mt.ut.ee/kogu/011.html
>
> CU
>
> Manuel
>

I've been looking around for a while for a case which can hold two sata
disks, because this way you can have a mirror, which makes it a perfect
backup solution for me.

There is one big problem with this. All cases I have found that can hold
two disks offer only a single esata port, which is provided by a port
multiplier. And port multipliers are not yes supported on Solaris and
Nevada. So I finally ended up getting a regular two disk chassis and
using a drill...

- Thomas

On 2009-05-20, Manuel Reimer <> wrote:
> Tristram Scott wrote:
>> Are you thinking of something like the J4200 disk array? Holds 12 SAS or
>> SATA disks.
>
> No, I'm thinking of a case for *one* hard drive like this one:
> http://muuseum.at.mt.ut.ee/kogu/011.html

Of course, that one is for SCA interfaced drives, and they are
also available for the 50-pin SCSI, and (perhaps) for the 68-pin SCSI.

To use a SATA drive in there, you would need a bridge card to
convert the drive's SATA to whichever interface your particular box has.
I don't know whether there are any such bridge cards, though I do know
that there are some made by the ACard company which convert IDE (PATA)
drives to both 68 pin and 50 pin SCSI. I'm using one of these in my
SB-2000 to make an IDE DVD burner work with the 50-pin SCSI used in the
computer.

Now -- I do have a way to use an SATA drive with my SB-2000, but
it requires a card made for the SB-1500 and SB-2500 -- the one which
offers several FireWire ports and USB 2.0 ports. This is a box called a
"docking station" for the drive -- and this particular one offers both
USB and FireWire. Based on experimentation with my SB-2000, the slowest
option (other than plugging into the 1.2 USB port built into the system)
is the built-in FireWire. The next is the USB 2.0 on the card, and the
fastest is the FireWire on the card. The experiment consisted of
running "newfs" on a 250 GB SATA drive with each of the three
interfaces. Based on the results, I would not bother using the built-in
FireWire, I might use the USB 2.0 on the card, and I would certainly use
the FireWire on the card.

Good Luck,
DoN.

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