5 Bay drive enclosures

[paul4]

Hi

well I've just just bought supermicro X9SRH-7F motherboard
32 gigs of RAM.
Intel xeon e2-2609v2.
Seagate 5x3 tb. 7200 RPM.

Help I am looking for 5 Bay drive enclosures and so far I have narrowed it down to 2.

istar USA 5 Bays enclosure.

1. Is anybody using 3tb drives with all drives populated because I have noticed it only has 2 sata power connectors is that going to lose and performance across the performance across the drives.
I have noticed other manufacturers 5 Bays has 3 sata power connector.

2. The holes on the front look very small and will take no time to block up with dust.

Icy Dock MB975SP-B 5 x 3.5" SATA.

1. Again anybody using these with 3 TB drives or populated.

2. It looks to me when cleaning the doors can be easily opened and my biggest concern again when cleaning the blue LED buttons can be easily caught and turned on and off and snagged and it looks very flimsy/fragile.

If anybody has got any recommendations it will be appreciated.

Thanks Paul.

 

[Ericloewe]

If you're worried about trayless enclosures being a bit too easy to open, there are also the versions with trays, like the MB155SP-B. I have the 3 bay version and I'm generally happy with it. I have some comments about it and the rest of my build in the build pic thread in the off-topic section.

Two connectors for 5 drives shouldn't be a problem, unless you start using Velociraptors in there.

 

[clamschlauder]

ICY DOCK MB155SP-B FatCage MB155SP-B 5x3.5" in 3x5.25" Hot Swap SATA HDD Cage

I have this installed in my Xaser 3 Case. Works great. I had an issue when I first installed it when 1 drive would not power up and the LED would not come on. Support was really helpful and asked that I try a couple things and if that didnt work they would get me a new one. Luckily it ended up that I was supplying power to 2 inputs from 1 leg. No Regrets on my purchase.

 

[joeschmuck]

I have a iStar 5 Bay enclosure BPU-350 which works great in my main computer and I'd say I swap out a drive a few times a month without issue, hot swapping even. What I will say that I don't like about the enclosure is the drive frames are slightly tapered so that when you install a drive you need to gently slide it in so the connectors will align, do not slam it home. Some drive enclosures have connectors which float, I don't have that. Still I wouldn't shove them in. I've seen a very good quality enclosure at work not work so good when someone shoved a drive in and the connectors were off just enough to short out the power connector. Melted the drive plastic connector, not a pretty sight.

I noticed you are worried about cleaning the dust out of the drive. Use compressed air, not a cleaning cloth, or even a vacuum to remove dust.

 

[Z300M]

Hi

well I've just just bought supermicro X9SRH-7F motherboard
32 gigs of RAM.
Intel xeon e2-2609v2.
Seagate 5x3 tb. 7200 RPM.

Help I am looking for 5 Bay drive enclosures and so far I have narrowed it down to 2.

istar USA 5 Bays enclosure.

1. Is anybody using 3tb drives with all drives populated because I have noticed it only has 2 sata power connectors is that going to lose and performance across the performance across the drives.
I have noticed other manufacturers 5 Bays has 3 sata power connector.

2. The holes on the front look very small and will take no time to block up with dust.

Icy Dock MB975SP-B 5 x 3.5" SATA.

1. Again anybody using these with 3 TB drives or populated.

2. It looks to me when cleaning the doors can be easily opened and my biggest concern again when cleaning the blue LED buttons can be easily caught and turned on and off and snagged and it looks very flimsy/fragile.

If anybody has got any recommendations it will be appreciated.

Thanks Paul.

I have two different revisions of the BPU350SATA. The original one has separate switches and LEDs and is supposedly good only for drives up to 2TB (which is what I am using). The 2nd and 3rd have the integrated switches and LEDs and is supposedly good for 4TB drives, but all I have are 2TB. No problems.

I'm away from home at present so can't check how many power connectors I'm using, but I think at least two on each (possibly mixture of SATA and the older Molex connectors).

Drives stay cool. The documentation is a bit confusing concerning the fan, but IIRC it spins up for a while but then stops until the temperature reaches that specified by the switch or jumper setting.