I have a PC that has room in its case for 3 HDDs, but 6 SATA connectors to the motherboard, and I have 6 HDDs. I am using these HDDs in a dynamics fashion (software raid, that sort of thing), but I want to use all 6, not just the 3 that fit into the case.
So, after looking around on some supplier websites, it seems like people typically buy either an external (hardware) RAID enclosure ($$$) or an external JBOD enclosure (and these don't support dynamic disks).
Why don't people just use their motherboard's remaining SATA connectors directly instead? Am I missing something here? For example, here is a popular JBOD enclosure on Amazon: Mediasonic 4-Bay. This is a JBOD 4 bay enclosure that connects to a PC by eSATA/USB3.0, but this will show up as discreet disks on Windows and doesn't support dynamic disks (such as using mirroring or striping within Windows). What's worse, is that since these HDDs are behind the Mediasonic's USB3.0/eSATA controller, people report HDDs dropping connectivity during extending transfers, etc.
I had the idea to build a small acrylic enclosure to hold 3 HDDs and a small fan. Then, I would use a PCI expansion card that adds a few eSATA ports and 4-pin power connecter onto the back of my PC, and run these cables to the acrylic box like this one. That way the HDDs would be plugged directly into my motherboard (not behind some cheap USB3.0 board or anything) and wouldn't need a power-brick since the PC's motherboard is supplying the power needed.
Can someone please point out any flaws in my understanding? Is there a strict length limit to SATA cables to maintain data transfer? Any thoughts are much appreciated!
just a bunch of disks