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| Thread ID: 64858 | 2005-12-31 02:37:00 | Hard drive cradles or | Chemical Ali (118) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 416753 | 2005-12-31 02:37:00 | Hi All Was thinking of cutting back on the number of PCs I have at home for the family (currently 4) and making 1 only available for use for the family by implementing the following hardware/system methodology: Each user/person has their own personal hard drive with Windows XP installed on it as well as their own programs, data, desktop setup etc which can be swapped in and out whenever someone wants to use the PC. That way I only have to maintain 1 PC & its associated components (plus leaving my Jukebox PC in its specialist role). 1: Which is better for this purpose -- a cradle like this (www.dse.co.nz) or a Swaprack enclosure such as this (www.ascent.co.nz) 2: It would seem better/more sensible to implement this sytem with SATA drives rather than IDE drives given the propensity of the pins on an IDE connection being bent as a result of frequent swapping of drives given the abovementioned scenario?? 3: Would also have a large volume drive (300-400GB) installed as a slave drive (permanently) and partitioned to provide data backup, data exchange and access to common data resources such as MP3 files. I welcome all your comments and opinions on how well such an idea would work as I am tired of constantly playing network administrator//tech support for my home network!! |
Chemical Ali (118) | ||
| 416754 | 2005-12-31 10:04:00 | Bump ... :) | Chemical Ali (118) | ||
| 416755 | 2005-12-31 10:12:00 | I use the drive trays extensively (I have 6) with PATA drives, the plug/socket is a quality device and I see no cause for concern regarding "bending pins". | godfather (25) | ||
| 416756 | 2005-12-31 20:14:00 | The Dick Smith one is absolute cr*p. Just some poorly constructed plastic injection. I've used SuperRack, which is OK, mostly metal. I removed the tiny fans in front, and with a standard 7200 RPM drives, the drive is barely warm. If you're using SCSI or Raptor drives you might seriously look at cooling, but these are unusual in home PC's. Bending pins won't be a problem with any setup. Cheaper solutions probably use cheaper connections, which could cause signal problems over time. |
kingdragonfly (309) | ||
| 416757 | 2005-12-31 21:27:00 | My cradles are mostly metal and the racks and tray body are solid cast alloy. They are the "old" DSE ones, no longer available. Overkill as far as ruggedness is concerned but unlikely to fail, each tray has dual fans as well to cool the HDD. However the solid cast alloy also acts as a good heat trasfer so the fans are not really needed. A pity they are not now available. |
godfather (25) | ||
| 416758 | 2005-12-31 21:37:00 | Having never used one or even see one up close I'd imagine that you have to reconnect/disconnect the cradle from the IDE ribbon/cable each time you want to swap out a hard drive? Which would mean powering the PC down each time?? Presume using the Vantec EZ-Swap thing you could do it on the fly?? Any further comments/suggestions. Cheers Paul |
Chemical Ali (118) | ||
| 416759 | 2005-12-31 21:58:00 | I disagree the DSE plastic hard drive caddies and trays are "absolute c**p", I have 9 or 10 with the 80 wire IDE cables in use with no problems, and I had no problems either with the older 40 wire versions. Chemical Ali... the cradle is mounted in a 5 1/4" bay and connected to the IDE cable, the hard drive is fitted into a caddie, which can just be plugged into or pulled out of the cradle. The PC should of course be powered off when doing this. |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 416760 | 2005-12-31 23:00:00 | Thanks for that Terry So .. if I understand you correctly the cradle stays permanently in the bay and just the caddie/hard drive are removed each time?? Cheers Paul |
Chemical Ali (118) | ||
| 416761 | 2005-12-31 23:23:00 | So .. if I understand you correctly the cradle stays permanently in the bay and just the caddie/hard drive are removed each time?? Yes. that's right. I have 4 computers each with 2 cradle/tray systems, one takes the main hard drive, the other can be used for backing up to a slave drive that can be plugged in. Then, drives with different operating systems can be plugged in, so the system is quite versatile. Just every now and again, a DSE tray unit needs to be re-seated to ensure good contacts, but considering they are less than half the price of metal units, then they fulfil the purpose for which they are intended with good value for money. |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 416762 | 2006-01-01 00:34:00 | I have done exactly this for a couple of years now and it works really well. I use the super-racks and I have a separate drive for each family member, one for experimenting, one for work stuff (never goes online), one for audio and video editing, and one as a data backup. It means nobody can stuff up oneone elses setup. Of course you have to shut down to change drives, but it saves having multiple pcs. I actually have 2 identical pcs setup and networked and any drive can go in either machine (they are networked as well) so data can be backed up to the backup drive across the network. It all works really well. | andy (473) | ||
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