lookin for eSATA jbod box

[eduawilde]

it seem there are more and more of this product out there.
i am looking for an 5-8 bay case reliable and reasonably priced with eSata connection
any suggestions and experiance
thanks,
Edua 

[jimtron]

http://www.cooldrives.com/
http://www.macgurus.com/
http://www.wiebetech.com/home.php
http://macsales.com/
http://newegg.com/

[peterkrogh]

Edua,
Getting any closer?
Peter

[atutton]

I love this case:

http://e3wwwtest.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16816111025

It's noisy but I only run it for back-up as I keep the drives I'm working on in the main tower.

I know it's not five to eight drives but I like the compact size and I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in an affordable compact enclosure.

[matthewjheaney]

I ended up getting a mini storage tower from Addonics:

http://www.addonics.com/products/raid_system/mst4.asp

I chose the mini storage tower as it has a smaller footprint.  The mini storage tower doesn't support removable bays for 3.5" drives (although it would for 2.5" drives), but I don't have a need for that functionality.

The model I chose has a single eSATA port on the back, and comes with a hardware port multiplier.  (I don't really need a HPM, as the software PM would do, but it wasn't that much extra).

I connect the box to my laptop using the 2-port expresscard adapter:

http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/adexc34-2e.asp

My laptop has an expresscard slot so this is very convenient -- and very fast.

The storage tower supports SATA drives, so right now I'm using a pair of Western Digital Cavier 500GB SATA drives (WD5000KSRTL):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBSREK/sr=8-13/qid=1196806424/ref=dp_cp_ob_title_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1196806424&sr=8-13

I'm starting to accumulate 2.5" drives (as I expand the capacity of the internal drive of my laptop), so I'll probably pick up a mobile rack so I can mount the drives in the tower:

http://www.addonics.com/products/Saturn/aesmr.asp

Cheers,
Matt

[peterkrogh]

MAtt,
Thanks for the links.

As to the spare laptop drives, I'd suggest using freestanding enclosures for these, for versatility reasons.

FOr the SATA drive I took out of MacBook, I've used this:
http://www.cooldrives.com/2sahddencosa.html

and like it pretty well.  I like the fact that it has FW400, FW800, and USB in one case.  The one thing I don't like is that it does not seem to self-power off of USB, (while it will do so off of Firewire.)

Peter

[matthewjheaney]

Actually, in my case these are 2.5" IDE drives.  Addonics makes drive enclosures that can be hot-swapped (it has an integrated IDE-to-SATA converter), and so can be plugged into mini storage tower (via a 3.5" enclosure), or plugged into the laptop (or desktop) via a separate cable.  Assuming I interpreted their website information correctly, the drive cartridge approach would be ideal, since then I could use it as an external drive that I could bring along with my laptop.

The Addonics website is somewhat confusing (because there are so many options), so I just sent their sales people  a query to nail down exactly what I need.  When I get the exact model numbers I'll post an update.

Regards,
Matt

P.S. Liked your DAM book...