adding more SATA ports question

[colin.pwns@gmail.com]

So Ive managed to use all the ports on my mobo, but need to add another drive still, so i need some advice. I can either get a PCI-e SATA card and plug more in that way, but with SLI/tri SLI im worried about spacing. alternatively im looking at getting This thing and putting a couple drives in that. I like the external option more cuz it looks cooler but im not sure about transfer speeds, will that cause slowdowns in transfers?

any advice welcome! thanks!

[HiVizMan]

I use one similar and you are going to get about 70MBs using the eSATA cable option.

[colin.pwns@gmail.com]

I use one similar and you are going to get about 70MBs using the eSATA cable option.

which one do you use?

[Silver Wolf]

Do you need internal storage? If you are worried about your SLI setup and spacing your better option will be to look at a NAS. Although they can be expensive if you are to get a decent one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822240035

Is what I use at home it has USB 2.0 and Gigabit ethernet ports and room to fit 5 drives. If you aren't very good (Or like in my case just lazy) with computers and RAID these are the way to go, it will automatically configure RAID to give you the most storage with complete data redundancy so all you have to do is literally just slot the drives into it.

[colin.pwns@gmail.com]

Do you need internal storage? If you are worried about your SLI setup and spacing your better option will be to look at a NAS. Although they can be expensive if you are to get a decent one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822240035

Is what I use at home it has USB 2.0 and Gigabit ethernet ports and room to fit 5 drives. If you aren't very good (Or like in my case just lazy) with computers and RAID these are the way to go, it will automatically configure RAID to give you the most storage with complete data redundancy so all you have to do is literally just slot the drives into it.

Internal would be ideal, but a NAS box isnt a bad idea, ive just never used one. My problem is i want whatever i come up with to have as little (no) speed loss due to bridging to a external box, via a PCI-E card, or ESATA. Ive looked at Drobo before, i have a WD TV box in the living room, and will prob be buying another one or two for other TVs in the house. The one i have now connects to a shared folder on my comp, which has ~4 TB of TV on it to stream, a NAS box would be GREAT to shift all that onto.....but ive been hesitant to drop $500+ on a NAS or $1kish building a WHS....

[Silver Wolf]

Whatever you do there will be some speed loss unless its internal obviously. But if you use USB 3.0 or gigabit ethernet it wont be a huge drop in speed and speaking from experience I am running a drobo on a 100megabit connection since I dont have my gigabit switch yet and I can run files from it without an issue the only time I notice it is when copying large amounts of files to it but a gigabit connection would quite severely drop that.

Yes drobos are a costly exercise at first but once they are set up they don't need any maintenance and literally just work. Throw a few WD Caviar Red's in there and she will be a beast. Plus $500 is pretty cheap for a 5 bay NAS, and its less fiddling than a WHS (Perfect for lazy IT guys lol)

[Arne Saknussemm]

Plugging more PCIe things in wont just affect SLI spacing it may reduce speed too!

[colin.pwns@gmail.com]

Whatever you do there will be some speed loss unless its internal obviously. But if you use USB 3.0 or gigabit ethernet it wont be a huge drop in speed and speaking from experience I am running a drobo on a 100megabit connection since I dont have my gigabit switch yet and I can run files from it without an issue the only time I notice it is when copying large amounts of files to it but a gigabit connection would quite severely drop that.

Yes drobos are a costly exercise at first but once they are set up they don't need any maintenance and literally just work. Throw a few WD Caviar Red's in there and she will be a beast. Plus $500 is pretty cheap for a 5 bay NAS, and its less fiddling than a WHS (Perfect for lazy IT guys lol)

So giving the Drobos another closer look. I do really like the idea of a external box liek that, toss in 5x WD Black 1 or 2 tbs would be perfect. Would it make more sense to get the pure ethernet one and just plug that into our router and access it all over the network, or get the 'S' model which has USB3 and eSATA, plug that into my desktop and serve it up from there, while i dont really need lightning fast speeds, streaming 1080p video files from the box, over either a wired connection or wifi, can be demanding so would like the quickest option. (sry im not that great with transfer speed specs lol)

[kkn]

if you connect it to a switch or your modem is up to you, since you have a network you can connect to it where ever you are realy ( outside or inside your network ), to stream a movie you dont need mutch speed, transfer well depends on the network ( we all think it aint going fast enough but thats how things are :P )
a friend of mine have a nas ( 5HDD's ) and he raided 2 of em ( or was it 4 of em ) and he gets around 60mbs ( dont remember 100% ) on giga network.
so there wil always be a bottleneck in one way or another.
whit me i have 3 gig switches and a 100mb modem i get around 10 - 30 mps on my network ( full duplex ) but whit me its the hdd's thats droping my speeds since its ide and sata2 ( 3 gig ).

[Silver Wolf]

I would advise to throw in Caviar Reds rather than Blacks. Blacks are good performance drives but you wont really see the benefit in a NAS whereas the Reds are drives designed to be used in a NAS and will perform better than Green drives and only slightly less than the blacks. As KKn said you will get bottlenecked somewhere however in the end you will always get enough speeds to stream easily. I already stream from mine to a WD TV Live and I run a 100 megabit network with Green drives in my NAS as I bought mine before the REDs were released.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...ducts_id=20886
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...ducts_id=20885
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...ducts_id=20884