Transform an old computer into an external enclosure

[Guest]

Hi everybody,

i need your help and I'm sorry for my english.

I have a relatively old computer and I'd like to know if I can turn it into an external JBOD enclosure to expand the Mac Mini server. I'm not talking about a NAS because I already have a server.

Thanks.

 

[getochkn]

You can put drives in a shoe box, it doesn't matter where. The problem is running cables. If you want to run like 10 SATA cables or USB cables, then you can do it.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, but my questions are:

1) how do I "convert" multiple SATA to one USB?
2) how can I power the HDDs?
3) how can i boot the system if I have to bypass the motherboard?

 

[getochkn]

1) Really can't, or can, but not fast or well. 1 SATA drive is like 10x faster than USB 2.0, and 1 SATA drive can just hit USB 3.0 speeds, so multiple drives to 1 USB connection, 2.0 or 3.0 won't be anywhere near fast enough.
2) You can power them with the PSU inside the computer. You can force the PSU to power on all the time by shorting the green wire with a black/ground wire.
3) You can't boot the system, you want an enclosure. Taht's just a dumb box. If you want anything to boot, then it's a NAS.

I really don't know what you want to do. The drives in a NAS would be accessable across a network and be faster, especially a gigabit speed one.


What ports does the mac mini have, or what does it allow in terms of external storage? why can't you just add bigger/more drives to it.

 

[Guest]

Thanks again.

I'd like to make and old computer acting like an external USB 3 JBOD enclosure like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4

I say "old computer" because I already have a case that can house 7x HDDs, a PSU, motherboard, RAM and a CPU.

I'll make you an example why I want it. The Mac Mini provides the (official) Time Machine service to the network. This service allows clients to make backups to a server (the Mac Mini in my case) that has an external drive connected to it, and this drive must be formatted in HFS+. If i connect directly the HDDs to the Mac Mini I can format them to HFS+, set RAID etc..but if I build a NAS, the Mac Mini would see the HDDs as AFP sharing and not as HFS+ drives. Is that correct?

Another reason is that I'd like to set a software RAID directly from the Mac Mini, and I can't set one on a AFP share.

The Mac Mini has USB 3, Thunderbolt 2 and an already used Ethernet port.

 

[getochkn]

For $99 I would buy that instead. lol. An old computer might be too slow for it, and getting the sharing part over USB 3.0 is probably going to at least take some sort of USB 3.0 add in card since old PC's odn't have USB 3.0 and I'm not even sure on the abilities of making drives and a USB connection into a host controller. Can probably ne done with Linux and a bunch of hacks and software, but $99.....

 

[Guest]

Thanks.

Ehm...the "old" computer is a i5 3570k, 8GB of RAM and it supports the USB 3.0.. 😀

 

[Guest]

Any other suggestion from you guys? Thanks