Cheap fast storage idea

[brett.howard]

Hi All,

Just built a great fast scsi storage system for way cheap. Forget IDE and UDMA this is the way to go. Heres what I did.

Find an old compaq server with onboard UW SCSI (I used a proliant 1500 Pentium 133 that was destined to live in the trash!) and remove the 5 way hot plug drive cradle from it and throw the rest away. Buy a 4u rack panel (£6) cut a large rectangle in it and bolt the compaq drive cradle to it. Bolt on an AT power supply next to it (to power the drives!) stick it in a rack and conect it to an adaptec 2940UW or such like and take advantage of all the compaq 9Gb ultra scsi hot plug drives that are on eaby for like £40-£50 each.

With this system I can have 5 drives in at any one time but the drives are so cheap I can afford loads of them. The drives are real fast, especialy if you use multiple drives at the same time!!!

I have just started building another one for my video edit setup.

A real compaq 19" rack HD system is about £850 + VAT for a 7 way with no drives installed!

Mine cost me about £30 to put together

Hope this inspires somebody!

Cheers
Brett