So I have been wanting to get a raid enclosure for some time now but just couldn't come to grips with spending hundreds of $$$$ for an enclosure. So I got to thinking and i had an old Drobo my cousin sent me to see if i could recover her raid array. (I host all of her stuff now with double and soon to be triple redundancy) Needless to say i got most of stuff before the Drobo died and went into the I will do something with it later pile in my office. So here it is later and I am going to redneck me up a raid enclosure with this thing. I already have a MR LSI-9285cv-8e controller, a SFF-8088 to SFF-8087 PCI Bracket and this 4 bay drobo. SO lets see what we can do.
Actually a nice little raid tower with access through firewire/ usb-2
So I have gutted the enclosure and started getting my game plan together
This box is not going to able to hot swap but that isn't the point. I am just going to use breakout cables and connect to it that way. No backplane.
I already have a raid 10 array built with another LSI card and if all goes well i should be able to drop the SAS drives right in and be up and running.
So I mounted the Adapter bracket onto the case and it turned out really nice. After i removed the existing backplane and circuit boards there is a nice 1 inch high area running the hole length of the enclosure on the bottom. This should give me enough space for the other equipment I will need.
So now I need to figure out how i am going to power this thing.
My first thought is to install a molex plug in the case and power it from my computer but i dont really like that idea to much and would like to have an independent power supply for it. I used to have a portable power supply that had molex and sata power connector for testing hard drives. I believe this would do the trick. I just need to figure a way to turn the enclosure on and off when my computer does. Been looking at USB relays but haven't had any experience with them. All of the ones i see are intelligent and i just want a relay that closes contact when power is supplied to it.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I will update as this progresses. Take care and have a great one
Actually a nice little raid tower with access through firewire/ usb-2
So I have gutted the enclosure and started getting my game plan together
This box is not going to able to hot swap but that isn't the point. I am just going to use breakout cables and connect to it that way. No backplane.
I already have a raid 10 array built with another LSI card and if all goes well i should be able to drop the SAS drives right in and be up and running.
So I mounted the Adapter bracket onto the case and it turned out really nice. After i removed the existing backplane and circuit boards there is a nice 1 inch high area running the hole length of the enclosure on the bottom. This should give me enough space for the other equipment I will need.
So now I need to figure out how i am going to power this thing.
My first thought is to install a molex plug in the case and power it from my computer but i dont really like that idea to much and would like to have an independent power supply for it. I used to have a portable power supply that had molex and sata power connector for testing hard drives. I believe this would do the trick. I just need to figure a way to turn the enclosure on and off when my computer does. Been looking at USB relays but haven't had any experience with them. All of the ones i see are intelligent and i just want a relay that closes contact when power is supplied to it.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I will update as this progresses. Take care and have a great one
