Has anyone used a multi-bay USB3.0 Enclosure with their server?

[XiaNYdE 13]

So i was wondering if anyone had used anything similar to what's shown in the pic??

I am fast running out of room on my media server and can't add anymore drives internally (it currently holds 11). Most of the drives are WD Red 3TB and the cost to upgrade to 6TB drives is still a bit high (2x 3TB is cheaper then one 6TB here in Oz). So i was thinking of investing in one of these 10 Bay 3.5in USB 3.0 SATA HDD External Enclosures shown and adding a couple more 3TB drives, but i am wondering if it would have any performance issues being that they'll be connected via USB3.0 to my server.

[fantaxp7 190]

Are you running any raid like software?

 

That seems like it might be a port multiplier which wouldn't play nice if you are. 

[dcrdev 251]

So I searched on Google via the image above and got this:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Orico-10-Bay-3-5-SATA-HDD-SSD-USB-3-0-External-Hard-Disc-Drive-Enclosure-Tower-/121865697967?hash=item1c5fc2faaf:g:OToAAOSwT5tWQyVg

 

It is essentially a bunch of SATA-USB interfaces connected via a hub, so accessing all those discs simultaneously would get you horrible transfer speeds. Whilst something like this would work with emby, I wouldn't recommend it, it's really expensive for what it is and doesn't provide any redundancy. For this amount of money you could build a pretty decent storage server yourself and for a little extra you could purchase a commercial nas from the likes of synology or qnap.

Edited April 19, 2016 by dcrdev

[spootdev 56]

Via a hub.......yeah, run run away.  Pants and screaming optional.

Edited April 19, 2016 by spootdev

[XiaNYdE 13]

Are you running any raid like software?

 

That seems like it might be a port multiplier which wouldn't play nice if you are. 

 

No, not running raid, i have no need for it, i have a mate that mirrors my entire collection on a server at his house, so for both of us to simultaneously lose the same drive, well that would be like winning lotto twice lol

[XiaNYdE 13]

So I searched on Google via the image above and got this:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Orico-10-Bay-3-5-SATA-HDD-SSD-USB-3-0-External-Hard-Disc-Drive-Enclosure-Tower-/121865697967?hash=item1c5fc2faaf:g:OToAAOSwT5tWQyVg

 

It is essentially a bunch of SATA-USB interfaces connected via a hub, so accessing all those discs simultaneously would get you horrible transfer speeds. Whilst something like this would work with emby, I wouldn't recommend it, it's really expensive for what it is and doesn't provide any redundancy. For this amount of money you could build a pretty decent storage server yourself and for a little extra you could purchase a commercial nas from the likes of synology or qnap.

 

Yeah i imagined it would give horrible speeds with all those drives running across a single USB cable but thought i would ask anyways to see what others thought.

 

So it looks like i'm either building a second server or forking out for bigger drives, given the prices here for 6/8TB drives (6TB WD Red =  AUD$375 / 8TB WD Red = AUD$529) the second server might be the go considering i can get 3TB Red's for around AUD$150.

 

...and DAMN that ebay price lol they have them here at PC Case Gear for $399

 

Thanks for your input everyone, it's appreciated

Edited April 19, 2016 by XiaNYdE

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

For the cost of that drive enclosure, you can probably get a tower case, motherboard, AMD CPU and build your own. Plus it will connect via Ethernet and give better speeds.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

On those drive costs, worth checking out the archive-style drives.  The write performance is a bit poorer but read is fine and it's not like media stores are getting tons of writes.  I don't know AU prices but http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Archive-6GBps-Internal-ST8000AS0002/dp/B00XS423SC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1461086221&sr=1-1&keywords=8tb+hard+drive is 8TB for $215 US.

 

I bought one for my server the last time I needed a new drive as a test and I've been very happy with it.

[XiaNYdE 13]

On those drive costs, worth checking out the archive-style drives.  The write performance is a bit poorer but read is fine and it's not like media stores are getting tons of writes.  I don't know AU prices but http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Archive-6GBps-Internal-ST8000AS0002/dp/B00XS423SC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1461086221&sr=1-1&keywords=8tb+hard+drive is 8TB for $215 US.

 

I bought one for my server the last time I needed a new drive as a test and I've been very happy with it.

 

@@Deathsquirrel i have looked at those mate, they are AUD$315 here. I was worried about two things though, firstly heat, come summer time it can get very hot where i live and even with all the fans in my server and the aircon running all day i am not sure i could keep those drives cool enough and secondly i have 3 teenagers constantly streaming on said server, so how would they handle it if say 4 or 5 people accessed material on one of those drives all at once??

[XiaNYdE 13]

For the cost of that drive enclosure, you can probably get a tower case, motherboard, AMD CPU and build your own. Plus it will connect via Ethernet and give better speeds.

 

It works out more expensive, but is a better option mate, i was just trying to avoid having 2 servers running but i guess there's no getting around it, sooner or later it'll need to be done lol

[dcrdev 251]

It works out more expensive, but is a better option mate, i was just trying to avoid having 2 servers running but i guess there's no getting around it, sooner or later it'll need to be done lol

 

If you already have a server and don't want another, would you not be better off getting a raid card and running additional drives off of that; if you're really against raid you could even run each drive in a separate raid 0.

[CBers 6771]

So i was wondering if anyone had used anything similar to what's shown in the pic??

 

I am fast running out of room on my media server and can't add anymore drives internally (it currently holds 11). Most of the drives are WD Red 3TB and the cost to upgrade to 6TB drives is still a bit high (2x 3TB is cheaper then one 6TB here in Oz). So i was thinking of investing in one of these 10 Bay 3.5in USB 3.0 SATA HDD External Enclosures shown and adding a couple more 3TB drives, but i am wondering if it would have any performance issues being that they'll be connected via USB3.0 to my server.

 

 

That's a nice disk tower, but it doesn't look like it has an eSata connection ??

 

I guess you could always try using something like Drive Bender with the disks if you don't want to use it as JBOD.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

If you already have a server and don't want another, would you not be better off getting a raid card and running additional drives off of that; if you're really against raid you could even run each drive in a separate raid 0.

 

Doesn't even need to be a raid card. You can add 2-4 port SATA cards on PCI-E 1x slots for $20 US. Not sure what they cost in Australia though.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

@@Deathsquirrel i have looked at those mate, they are AUD$315 here. I was worried about two things though, firstly heat, come summer time it can get very hot where i live and even with all the fans in my server and the aircon running all day i am not sure i could keep those drives cool enough and secondly i have 3 teenagers constantly streaming on said server, so how would they handle it if say 4 or 5 people accessed material on one of those drives all at once

 

Dunno, I've not had an issue so far with 2 streams at once but I don't have many situations where I would ever get 3-4.  Look at the bit rates of your content and multiply by 4.  Compare that to the sustained read speeds of the drive and see if it's practical for you I suppose.

[MSattler 387]

http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_archive_hdd_review_8tb shows 156MB per second.  Being that even the best blu ray rips are say 40Mbps max, x 4 = 160Mbps I think you would have no issues as 156MBps translates to 1248Mbps.

 

 

Now granted, the initial writes are going to be somewhat painfully slow.  You can also mix your content, like only but half the new movies on the 8TB drive, move some content from the older drives over as well.  This way newer content get's split among multiple drives.

[XiaNYdE 13]

If you already have a server and don't want another, would you not be better off getting a raid card and running additional drives off of that; if you're really against raid you could even run each drive in a separate raid 0.

 

Already running 2x SATA cards mate, my problem is i have no more room for drives lol My tower has reached max capacity of 11 drives No more drive bays and no more power connections in there.

[darrenkdean 29]

I used to run a similar configuration, with the exception that my tower was an older Sans Digital esata TowerRaid TR8M-BP with port multiplier & 3 gb/s drives.  The performance was fine for streaming several devices at one time.  As noted above, the write speeds are horrible but the read speeds are more than sufficient.  Do not run them JBOD.  Rather, as suggested above, install Drive Bender or Stable Bit Drive Pool.  I've used both & prefer Drive Bender, but both are very good.

 

We now use a PowerEdge C2100 with a PowerVault MD1000.

[madjomack 0]

I used to run a similar configuration, with the exception that my tower was an older Sans Digital esata TowerRaid TR8M-BP with port multiplier & 3 gb/s drives.  The performance was fine for streaming several devices at one time.  As noted above, the write speeds are horrible but the read speeds are more than sufficient.  Do not run them JBOD.  Rather, as suggested above, install Drive Bender or Stable Bit Drive Pool.  I've used both & prefer Drive Bender, but both are very good.

 

We now use a PowerEdge C2100 with a PowerVault MD1000.

I'm also running a Poweredge C2100 with a perc H810 raid controller card. I have a MD1000 with 15 1TB drives and a MD1200 with 12 2TB drives. It is extremely fast and you can find these fairly cheap on ebay.

[KayJay 2]

Running out of room on 10x 3TB HDD's. I'd love to see your collection of media!

[CBers 6771]

Running out of room on 10x 3TB HDD's.

As JBODs, pooled or raided?

[Sorahl 1]

for what its worth. I have purchased and am using 2 of these (about 2 years and counting). I have them each full, different sizes but several are 4 TB drives and ... I love them. they turn on when the pc reboots..the drives are individual (no... i'm not using RAID mirroring..- I need space not redundancy). and very fast when connected via usb 3.0

 

John

[dcook 265]

Get a proper NAS box like QNAP, they have ones that hold 4 HD's for around $500

[oxidius 0]

I've been using theese kind of DAS for about 3-4 years now.

 

I never used orico branded enclosures, but I have a usb from and it performs quite well.

They can be pretty usefull, I currently have 3 x 4-bay units (Mediasonic) attached to my main server. They saturate my usb 3.0 connection (my mobo is the weakest link with a ~150MBPS bandwith).

2 of them are full of 8tb seagate archival drives, I use them for weekly semi-cold backups.
The third one is currently used to old some of my series.

You can get 4-bay enclosures for around 100$cad when they get in sale.

The form factor and noise levels are quite appealing.

I would not use them for anything else than JBOD, even if they come with a RAID controller, it's not worth the risk IMHO.

tldr:
The 4-bay ones are a cheap way to get more storage slot.