Little Frog in High Def

You are forgetting power. The iStar case for $185 does not include a power supply. Not a big deal, you can find an inexpensive power supply anywhere.

-crime… uh make that EDITING partner

Ahh…forgot that.

Thanks Danny…

I’m no expert in this, so this is more of a question than a comment, but the specs for the D-400 say “iStarUSA 4U Rackmount Case, Model D-400, Drive Bays: 4×5.25″, 1×3.5″, 2×3.5″ (internal), Dimensions: 19.0″ x 20.8″ x 7.0″, Mainboard size: ATX (12″x13″), 350W PSU.”

The way I read that, the physical rackmountable enclosure has (4) external 5.25″ drive bays; (1) 3.5″ external bay; and (2) internal 3.5″ bays. I would also interpret “350W PSU” to mean that it does come with a 350 watt Power Supply Unit, and that the case is designed to handle a 12″x13″ ATX style motherboard, which you would supply. In other words, this is a barebones rackmountable computer case.

It’s hard to tell without being able to open it up and see it, but wouldn’t there be sheetmetal structural elements that would prevent you from mounting two of the ICY DOCK MB454SPF-B 4-in-3 SATA-II Cages? Assuming you wanted to be able to hot-swap the drives, wouldn’t you be limited to a single four bay enclosure cage? The Icy Dock MB454SPF-B is a three bay cage, and there wouldn’t be space for two of them.

Unless you wanted to modify the case (which doesn’t sound like much fun), I don’t see how you could get more than six hot-swappable drives in there, for example (2) ICY DOCK MB453SPF-B 3-in-2 SATA-II Cages, which would each take up two of the four available 5.25″ external spaces.

I suppose you could add two more un-swappable drives to the internal 3.5″ bays, bringing the total up to 8. (Not sure if you could add a drive to the external 3.5″ bay, since that was probably originally designed for a floppy drive.)

Does this make sense, or am I missing something?

Wow, I missed that. I’ve seen it for higher prices on other sites without the power supply. There are many versions of the D-400 case. The one in question isn’t the right case, you would need the D-400 with 6 externally accessable 5.25″ bays.

Server cases can have many, many uses. If you go to http://www.istarusa.com you can see the possibilities. To clarify for anyone looking to build a large RAID, just because a case has space for a motherboard (and is probably intended to have one), doesn’t mean that you have to put one in there. iStar has a version of the case that comes preconfigured for storage:
http://www.istarusa.com/divipcdiv/d-400m10.htm

You can even put hot-swappable redundant power in these things.

The other thing that needs to be considered is the length of the cable run. I was talking to a Seritek rep at NAB this year, asking if there was any way to adjust the length of the DC cable from their AC brick for their dual drive units. It’s really awkward (unless you have unlimited desktop space, and I don’t know many people who do), because the DC cable is too short to put the AC brick on the floor, away from the drives. Since it’s just a DC power cable coming out of the brick, it didn’t occur to me that cable length would make any difference.

In the course of that conversation, she was telling me that SATA cables are extremely sensitive to crosstalk because of the speeds involved, and that even longer DC cables could create problems. That’s one reason (although not the only one) why external SATA cables are so short–to minimize the exposure to crosstalk.

In other words, you need to be able to place the case very close to your editing computer, and these types of cases are not small. Some people may be able to put them on their side next to the computer like a second tower…but it might make sense to start with a tower in that scenario.

I don’t have any personal experience with it, and I’m sure it has its own issues (not the least of which is cost), but fiber channel has the added advantage of longer cable runs (as well as speed).