general hardware question, re external drive bays

[wfriedwald]

I have been managing lots of external hard drives in all manner of enclosures for what seems like forever.

the biggest is a rack that houses eight 3.5 SATA drives at once.

the advantage is that all eight drives use only one USB3.0 cable and one AC power cable.

the disadvantage, obviously, is that all eight have to be turned on at once. sometimes I just need something from one of the eight drives, and I have to turn them all on.

question: does anyone know of a drive bay enclosure in which individual drives can be powered on and off? rather than the whole magila at once, all or nothing at all?

Please Let me know if so.

Happy Holidays everybody!

w

 

[leo-tech]

I doubt the drive bay or enclosure you are looking for even exists on the mass market, so the only realistic option for you would be (1) switch the 8-drive rack on, (2) in macOS, unmount the unwanted drives, (3) work with one or more drives you need at the moment. It's not very convenient, but if you really need to power the individual drives On and Off (and then always remembering to unmount them in macOS prior to powering them Off, so where's the radical convenience or advantage of such a solution?), then it's either DIY, or hiring a specialist who will do it for you.

 

[wfriedwald]

okay, thanks for your feedback. It's not the answer I was hoping for, but I am glad to have an answer!

(if anybody is aware of anything else... let us know.)

Happy Holidays again!

 

[Fishrrman]

USB3/SATA docking station.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I had a similar situation, I had a bunch of external disks with various things on them (old backups, videos, etc) and I had a 5-bay storage unit, plus a dual bare-drive dock. I had disks ranging from probably 320GB up to 2TB. But when I totaled up all the storage on each of them, it actually added up to maybe 5TB. So I bought an 8TB USB disk, moved everything over, bulk-erased all the old disks, and recycled them.

I still have my Drobo with three 4TB disks in it for daily use, the 8TB USB is just for archives. But it's a heck of a lot handier than juggling all the others, and it draws a lot less power and is quieter too - plus I can just leave it online all the time. And the cost is minimal - today the 8TB USB disk is $129. http://a.co/d/b1jraFj

 

[allan]

I have been managing lots of external hard drives in all manner of enclosures for what seems like forever.

the biggest is a rack that houses eight 3.5 SATA drives at once.

the advantage is that all eight drives use only one USB3.0 cable and one AC power cable.

the disadvantage, obviously, is that all eight have to be turned on at once. sometimes I just need something from one of the eight drives, and I have to turn them all on.

question: does anyone know of a drive bay enclosure in which individual drives can be powered on and off? rather than the whole magila at once, all or nothing at all?

Please Let me know if so.

Happy Holidays everybody!

w

https://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/3N5-T2.html

Has independent power on/off buttons for each bay.

 

[wfriedwald]

thank you! something to seriously consider, and that's an excellent price.

maybe I'm wrong, but I've traditionally thought that the life of a hard drive was long but finite. and the longer I leave a drive "on" the quicker it burns out. obviously it lasts a while but will fail eventually. lately I've been trying to turn on drives only when I need them, rather than leaving them on all day just for convenience. hence the idea of turning them on one at a time... but I still don't want to deal with 20 different individual enclosures / docking stations whatever!

thanks again

w
[doublepost=1545850553][/doublepost]

https://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/3N5-T2.html

Has independent power on/off buttons for each bay.

yes! that's the ticket. more expensive than any I've yet purchase, but quite probably worth it for the convenience!

thanks!

w

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I've traditionally thought that the life of a hard drive was long but finite. and the longer I leave a drive "on" the quicker it burns out.

"Leave it on" versus "Power it on only when you need it" is probably a bigger argument than Mac vs. PC

 

[allan]

thank you! something to seriously consider, and that's an excellent price.

maybe I'm wrong, but I've traditionally thought that the life of a hard drive was long but finite. and the longer I leave a drive "on" the quicker it burns out. obviously it lasts a while but will fail eventually. lately I've been trying to turn on drives only when I need them, rather than leaving them on all day just for convenience. hence the idea of turning them on one at a time... but I still don't want to deal with 20 different individual enclosures / docking stations whatever!

thanks again

w
[doublepost=1545850553][/doublepost]
yes! that's the ticket. more expensive than any I've yet purchase, but quite probably worth it for the convenience!

thanks!

w

Here's a less expensive one that's USB only:

https://www.amazon.ca/Independent-C...?ie=UTF8&qid=1548139364&sr=8-8&keywords=sisun

 

[wfriedwald]

thanks! that looks like a good unit - only drawback is that it doesn't seem to come with a power cord. but looks like something to consider. thanks!

w

 

[allan]

thanks! that looks like a good unit - only drawback is that it doesn't seem to come with a power cord. but looks like something to consider. thanks!

w

It does:

Packing Content:
1 x 9558U3 5-Bay Enclosure
1 x Power Cable
1 x 3.3Ft USB 3.0 Cable
2 x HDD Care Locking Key
1 x User Manual