What is SIDE?

There is IDE, SATA, and SCSI.

IDE: Two drives per port, Master, Slave
SATA: One drive per port
SCSI: 16 drives per port, depending on the particulars of the SCSI
port connected

The only piece of information you haven't given us is size or number
of ports you want to start off with, and maximum ports you want to
deal with at any given time.

Quite frankly, I'd use a low end machine and cheap USB adaptors - each
USB adaptor is going to cost less than $40, it's _very_ scalable, and
it's hot-swappable with extreme ease.  If you want to add more than 4
drives to such a system, use or design a shelving unit and figure out
cable management - that's the main drawback to doing USB.

If you want really cheap, then build your own system.  Many new
motherboards have 4-6 SATA ports and 1 IDE port (2 drives) onboard, so
those should get you started with up to 8 drives and no extra cards.

I haven't tried it yet, but Windows Home Server has the ability to
manage all the drives on the system as one single large volume which,
I understand, you can add drives to with impunity and the volume will
automagically grow.  I don't know how removing a drive (or a drive
failure) affects it - it may give you the option to implement a
software raid, or to move data off a drive you slate for removal, or
none of the above.  But it's something to look into, as it manages a
lot of what you're going to want to do automatically, and will do so
with USB/sata/ide/etc drives.

Also, look around your local used computer parts shop.  They should
have PCI IDE cards at a dime a dozen, and older systems with windows
XP or 2k on them.  These older systems will be perfectly fine for your
use, and this may be the cheapest possible method.  See if they have
full tower cases available, and load up a system with PCI IDE cards
and IDE hard drives.

Let us know how it goes and what you decide, sounds interesting.

-Adam

On 2/8/08, Apptech <apptech@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> > Your probably best off getting something like this
> > http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr2340.htm
> >
> > 16x SATA card in PCI-E 8x
> > ~$600 AUS which works out at around $40 per drive
>
> Looks good, but I wonder why you can't do something similar
> for rather less.
>
> I understand that, while SIDE is usually run 1 drive per
> cable to the controller that you can actually logically
> operate up to 16 (maybe 15?) from a single SIDE port. I
> understand (quite possibly incorrectly) that it's little
> more than cabling involved. Sounds unlikely, but ... .
>
> Obviously the above would have serious data bandwidth
> implications if using the drives for uncorrelated data
> access. from many sources. If its mainly photos and a single
> user then that's  not an major problem except perhaps if
> transferring files within the array - not usually what I do.
>
>
>
>
>        Russell
>
>
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