AMS SATA BackPlane

[rory 0]

Has anyone else used this yet, if so, which Raid controller did they use with it, and how did they do it? Also, any ideas how much current it draws?

 

3 in 2 Model:

http://www.american-media.com/product/backplane/sata300/sata300.html

 

PDF:

http://www.american-media.com/product/backplane/sata300/DS_2131SSBK.pdf

 

Thanks

Rory

[CollinR 0]

No experience with that one but the others I have seen are bring your own RAID controller. Basically just a way to get more external drive trays into normal cases. Hence the name 3 into 2, it's just being able to have 3 where normally you could only have 2.

[rory 0]

Yeah I was looking at that .. do you need to have a raid though?

They are like $400+

 

I guess if you want it hot swappable you do right?

[CollinR 0]

If you study the PDF on that you'll find:

 

*AMS Recommends 3Ware 8000/9000 SATA RAID controller.

 

RAID shouldn't be required though. Granted usually only RAID controlers have hot swap capabilities.

 

Asus has some motherboards that support hot swap SATA on the onboard SATA controller.

[rory 0]

Yeah i saw that, and checked, they start around $350+

That was why I was wondering if Raid is needed.

[WirelessEye 0]

After looking at this, it looks like nothing more than a solution for fitting 3 Sata Drives in (2) 5.25 slots. The backplane will have individual "outlets" for each drive. You don't "have" to run RAID, but that's the intended use for the target audience of this product. Certainly this setup is not ideal for raid as there are an "odd" number or slots.

 

They are recommending 3ware, but I'd check out what Promise has first. Or if you are looking on the cheap, try and find a Mobo with onboard RAID. But then again if you are looking to install in an existing setup and want to run RAID, you'll of course need the controller card-- but it would be cheap since this is a cheapy RAID setup (750GB Max with 1 Hot Swap drive if you go RAID 5 because you'll drop a drive for striping).

[rory 0]

Ive never setup Raid before .. so im just seeing what it entails and whether this is worth it .. for a basic setup .. so they can remove the drives if they need to .. doesnt have to be hot swapable .. they could shut down the PC in this case .. but hot swap would be nice ..

 

Its an Asus Motherboard 945 and I believe they do have raid in the bios?

 

thanks

Rory

[WirelessEye 0]

That motherboard does not have built in RAID, so a controller would be neccessary.

 

Raid 5 is going to be the best Raid for surveillance footage backup. It offers you complete backup if a drive fails. If you do have a failure, you pull out the drive, insert a new one, and the array will rebuild. There is another RAID (10 I think?) that does this as well, but costs oodles more and you get way less disk space with that setup. 50% of your hard drives store the data and it is faster than RAID 5, but RAID 5 is much more common place and you only have to use 1 of your drives for failover.

 

If you do decide to go RAID to make sure that the card you get is compatible with the mobo. Most RAID cards are PCI-X which are the longer 64-bit slots, but you can get a 4 port for under $100.

 

I have never worked with a non-RAID hot swap setup and thought it didn't exist, but it apparently does:

http://www.cooldrives.com/ex4drhosaenw.html

[rory 0]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Ill probably be using the PCI-e x16 for the video card, so would have to be x1 or PCI .. Ill see what they have ..

 

Rory