Re: SATA, eSATA, Port Multiplying and RAID

["noughtomate" <balraj_jassal@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pretty please with a cherry on top!

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "noughtomate" <balraj_jassal@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have various standalone USB and Firewire Hard drives lying about
> but now Node Zero has become abit of a mess, so I'm looking at a
> rack mount chassis for my primary Media Server. This will be a
> standalone rackmount PC which I'm quite comfortable with building.
>
> However, I want to build it for growth and need to consider a
> seperate multi Drive rack to sit alongside it sometime in the
> future. I've been inspired by this Silverstone DS351 kit
> (http://tinyurl.com/4dt5uj with a good
Video  review [7 mins] here
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ie6iRXCKGA).
>
> The problem with this device however is that it requires the
> controlling PC motherboard to have a Sil3132 Chip set, which my
> motherboard doesn't support.
> Sure, I can upgrade my motherboard in the future, but it begs the
> questions - how is SATA meant to be muliplied ?
>
> I read many moons ago that as great as SATA is for throughput, it
> does not lend itself well to port multiplying and normally should
be
> use in a 1 physicial interface : 1 HDD arrangement (correct me if
> I'm wrong).  Recently, I've been reading about something called
SATA
> Backpanes which confused me further and it just made me think how
I
> could build my own HDD Chassis.
>
> So my questions :
>  - How is SATA meant to be used ? Can a single motherboard
> connection (whether SATA or eSATA) control multiple Hard drives ?
>
>  - Although eSATA is external, how is it different from SATA ? Can
> what what I do with SATA be done with eSATA ? (Aside from power
> requirements)
>
>  - If I wanted to build a HDD server to be connected to my PC's
> eSATA connector, what kind of board do I need ? Is there any such
> thing as a standalone PCB (which fits ATX/MicroATX/MiniATX etc..
> size) which can perform the backpane / port multiplying / RAID
> function ?
>
> - Does any form port propogation allow for varying size /
> manufacture disks in a JBOD configuration ? The emphasis seems to
be
> RAID which I expect would require identical disks.
>
> - Do any of my above questions have to be chipset dependent ?
>
> Yes I am confused!
> Any advice would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>



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