HDD x2?

[HansiHusten]

Hey there,

im planing to order two or three fit-PC2´s but im still wondering:
Will there every be hardware with 2 HDD slots? I really want to use RAID on those HDDs. So any ETA for 2x HDD slots? (No I dont want to connect a 2nd 2,5" HDD via USB)

Greetings HH

[irads]

There is no possibility to add a 2nd HDD interface to fit-PC2.

[HansiHusten]

That wasnt my question. The question was if there will ever be hardware like Fit-PC3 with HDD-slots or isnt there anything planed yet? You should know that running a server like this with 1 hdd is too risky.
So are there any plans for new hardware? maybe also with audio out via HDMI?

[irads]

We do not discuss future products.

[yogev_ezra]

I have found something interesting:

Jan 24, 2010 – Taiwan Commate Computer Inc. (COMMELL), announced its new 2-port External Serial ATA (eSATA) Host Bus Adapter PCI Express mini card -- MPX-3132. MPX-3132 board maximizes the performance of two external SATA ports, built on the high-speed Sil3132 SteelVine controller, connects two 3 Gbps external Serial ATA (eSATA) device ports to a single lane Mini-PCI Express host connection and includes support for FIS based port multiplier switching which accesses multiple drives simultaneously, effectively aggregating the bandwidth of the drives (Traditional SATA controllers only support CMD based switching which can only access a single drive at a time).

The board has a bandwidth of 3Gbps per port, making them ideal for connecting multi-drive storage solutions, and it is compatible with Windows, Linux operating systems, with software RAID driver enables RAID 0 (FAST), 1 (SAFE) and BIG (drive spanning) when single drives are connected to the (two) eSATA ports. When connected to a port multiplier, RAID 0 (FAST), 1 (SAFE), 10 (SAFE & FAST) and BIG (drive spanning) are supported, as well as RAID 5 using a Silicon Image software RAID driver.

MPX-3132_400x237.jpg (93.65 KiB) Viewed 28930 times

I plan to order a sample to check whether Fit-PC2 can work with it. I will post here how goes.
*** DISCLAIMER: Replacing the mini-PCIe card in Fit-PC2 voids your warranty ***

[PieterPan]

Very interesting, please do let us know. It is about 50 euros near where I live, so reasonable. I do wonder, are those connectors the actual e-sata connectors or would we need some other cable in between?

[yogev_ezra]

Those are wafer connections, and the manufacturer supplies 2x wafer to SATA data cables (as shown on the picture):

OALSATA7-H10_400x348.jpg (60.72 KiB) Viewed 28853 times

I assume SATA power you will still have to take from Fit-PC2 own SATA power connector (or external power supply).

If it does work, it should exhibit faster disk transfer speed, since current implementation is based on IDE controller which is slower than PCIe bus. I have attached the datasheet of this card as well.

[PieterPan]

Thanks for the information, I figured there'd be something like that. Looks very nice indeed. I suppose you just need a decent power supply with 5 and 12 volt, like this one:

DC Output: +5V / 2.0A
+12V / 2.0A

The new green harddrives usually don't draw more than 1A on each line, so you can power two off of this one (using a molex to 2x sata power cable)

The poor fit-pc2 would look very small compared to the two 3.5" harddrives

[yogev_ezra]

I have ordered a few samples, and they should arrive in about 3 weeks. I will post here after I test them.

[PieterPan]

Obviously it would be cool if we can create one or two connectors that plug into the wafer connector on the mini pci card and that you can mount internally onto the fit-pc2 chassis. I really wonder if it will all fit, though
I suppose just cutting the cable supplied with the MPX-3132, and connecting it to an esata socket would work: http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/im ... _large.gif

I'll wait for your results, thanks!