Please Recommend me a CHEAP 4 drive esata enclosure without drives…

[Shane Ross]

Macgurus.com has a good reputation and they are semi inexpensive.

Remember, you are editing video, so you want enclosures that are made for that task and rated for that task…as it is more demanding than simple data storage. Stuff that Fry’s sells, and other VERY cheap enclosures, are not designed for the demands that video has. Don’t skimp now, you’ll be paying for it when things don’t work right in the future.

MacGurus makes good eSATA boxes.

Shane

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[David Roth weiss]

Bryan,

What you’re asking for is called port multiplier technolgy (PM), and it requires a PM controller and a PM enclosure. Unfortunately, most PM setups have no to be terrribly reliable in the long run, so you are better using the four cable to four drive setup. If you need a new one, Firmtek makes the most reliable, and quiet 4-bay enclosures I’ve come across. It’s what I use and it’s been fooproof for nearly four years.

David Roth Weiss
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Los Angeles

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[Bryan Roberts]

Beautiful, thanks so much for the insight guys.

So, it’s absolutely fine to run 4, eSATA to SATA cables from my new Sonnet E4P card to an external SATA enclosure with four drive bays? There’s no downside to using eSATA to SATA cables? Thanks again.

[Steven Gonzales]

Before you buy a really cheap enclosure, you might consider that one of the things that makes it cheap is power supply design.

Poorly isolated and/or regulated power supplies might put aberrant voltages onto the signal lines, and this could contribute to the card failure.

[Chris Poisson]

That shouldn’t be any problem, I have the same setup as David plus one of their two drawer units for my MacBook Pro, which I also can plug into the 4 port card.

Have a wonderful day.

[Bryan Roberts]

The one I have takes internal power from my computer. I think that’s better regulated than a cheap external power supply since it’s coming from my machine – or that would be my thinking at least…

So, any issues using eSATA to SATA cables?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bryan Roberts] “So, any issues using eSATA to SATA cables?”

No. Sata was originally made for internal connections. When SATA started to proliferate the market, those SATA connections weren’t very robust. ESATA connections vary only in connection design, they do not inhibit performance in anyway. The are simply an internal SATA cable with a different connector crimped on to the end of it for use outside of the computer chassis.

Make sense?

Jeremy

[Bryan Roberts]

This was exactly what I suspected. I had been reading user reviews for certain eSATA to SATA cables on Newegg (I try to take these with a grain of salt since most people who leave comments on retail sites are not well informed) but one cable had many users saying they could only achieve USB transfer speeds because of the “conversion”. That threw a bit of doubt in my assumed knowledge and you just wiped my doubt away. Thank you sir.

[Jeremy Garchow]

No worries.

What can slow down the speed is that some drives have a jumper on them that allows them to operate @ 1.5 gpbs. If you take the jumper off, it can operate at 3 gbps.

Jeremy

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
Am I right in thinking that the Port Multiplier failure problems are focussed on the use of RAID+PM.
If you configure your Port Multiplier external box as JBOD (no RAID) then a bridge-board failure is inconvenient (swap the drive), but not fatal?

One difference of eSATA rather than SATA is that the voltages are a bit more robust, and a 2m cable is permissible, rather than a 1m cable for internal SATA connection.