Archive for September, 2008

External SATA the way i like it (And Don’t)

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

Things and Objects in this blog…

*My BELKIN SATA II ExpressCard (Silicon Image SIL 3132 SATALink controller)
*My SIIG eSATA II PCIe Pro RAID (Silicon Image SIL 3132 SoftRaid 5 controller)
*My Western Digital Black WD1001FALS
*My Seagate 1TB hard drive
*My OLD Obsolete satellite receiver (It’s BOX)
*My WD esata compatible MyBOOK (Not the hero of the post anyways)

Long ago, i got the ESATA II Express Card that fits all my NEW laptops (Older laptops do not have expresscard), and another SIIG PCI-E ONE (V1.0) for my desktop at the office, i created an enclosure (MyBOOK’s Power block isn’t so powerful and 2 MyBooks are even bulkier than my solution, besides, i HATE the separate power Block (and i really really want 2TBs in that external enclosure).

To begin with, i got a box from an old satellite receiver that is very good (as something other than being an obsolete analogue receiver), took it’s guts out, installed a bay for 2 drives inside and a power supply of a desktop computer (they fit magically), i made 2 esata ports on the rear (Using a sata to esata bracket) and connected them to the BELKIN (F5U239) or SIIG (eSATA II PCIe Pro RAID) external adapters, they work fine (Or do they ??)

To start with, both the PCI-e card and the ExpressCard have the same chip, Made by silicon image, SIL 3132, nevermind the name SoftRaid or SATALINK, the chip is exactly the same.

Silicon Image does issue firmware for all there chips (For you to put on the flash on the board to run the chip), the SIIG takes this firmware fine, the BELKIN does not.

You can not get Firmware from the Belkin Website, and yet, updating the firmware with the one from Silicon Image does not work with the belkin, and what is much much worse, is that the belkin should be bootable but it is NOT !

It overheats and starts to act strange… i simply teared off the paper sticker so it can cool off, then with some thermal epoxy i installed 2 thick sheets of aluminum on it and made them stick out so they can conduct the heat outside the laptop and the problem dissapeared (Strange, knowing that the chip does not get in contact with the PLASTIC of the ExpressCard but i am not complaining !

Anyway, BELKIN card sucks, i regret buying it, i will buy a different one very soon.

Now back to my beloved enclosure

A 500W power supply, 2*1TB hard drives, one of them WD-Black edition mentioned in the previous post, the other 1TB seagate hard drive.

I will post images of how to do this with your obsolete satellite receiver (Remember the days of analogue receivers), and then you can sell your so called sata enabled mybook, The power supply in this makes me feel much more comfortable.

What is left for me to do is add crumble zones (Using polystyrene or some other material) so that i can protect my data, i do weekly backups of both drives, But it would be better to add a level of protection to last weeks work

I will update this as soon as i get my digital camera back :)

Happy Data Management for now