[m021478]

I was hoping that someone could provide a reference for a site that sells (or a company that makes) a 'tray-less' eSATA Serial ATA port-multiplier enclosure with 3, 4, or 5 bays?

I am essentially looking for an enclosure just like this one, except one that's tray-less and won't require a screwdriver to mount/unmount the drives from a hot-swappable tray every time I want to add/remove/change one...

This is something I have been searching for for a really long time without any success, so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[OreoCookie]

Try Wiebetech's RTX series. They're tray-free.

[Guy Kuo]

I use and very much like a CFI 8-Bay Terratower, but it is a trayed solution. The four screws take 60 seconds to put in, but like you I was originally looking for a trayless solution. The hitch was needing a port multiplier e-sata interface due to limitations of my PCI-X equipped Powermac Digital Audio. I never could find a multi-lane host card that would work.

Along the way I also found and was very interested in the trayless solutions...

8-Bay SATA II Hot-Swap Dual-MultiLane Enclosure with SATA II QuickSwap Racks

They also have a five bay solution Hardware RAID SATA II Port Multiplier 5-Bay Removable Rack QickSwap System Sil4726

Personally, I'd get as many bays as you can afford. The closter to 5 drives you have in RAID5, the more efficient your storage capacity.

[m021478]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Try Wiebetech's RTX series. They're tray-free.

Nice! Thanks for the link!

Out of curiosity, I don't suppose you have might know what the main differences (in terms of performance) one could expect when comparing the Port-Multiplier version of this enclosure, compared to the JBOD version?

[mduell]

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