Has anyone tried one of these adapters yet with UNRAID?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400542

 

ETA: Rats, only supports 2.5" drives

...  Rats, only supports 2.5" drives

 

Haven't tried one of these, but clearly they don't "really" only support 2.5" drives.  They're designed to plug into a 2.5" drive and provide power from the USB bus ... which isn't able to provide enough power for a 3.5" drive.

 

But if you simply used the data portion via a short SATA extension like this:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=7634&catargetid=320013720000066114&cadevice=c&kpid=107634&gclid=CND7yv26r8YCFUMjgQod2X8DdA

 

... and then connected a SATA power cable to the drive from your PC or via an external power adapter [e.g. http://www.amazon.com/AGT-External-Power-Supply-Adapter/dp/B00B42UTFO ], the unit would work fine with a 3.5" drive.

 

... Whether or not UnRAID would work with this (which is your basic question) I simply don't know.

 

 

I expect unRAID or indeed any computer would simply see this as a USB drive. Not usable in the array but could probably be mounted outside the array.

Agree.    There's been some discussion about possibly allowing USB3 drives to be included in the array, but I don't believe that's likely to happen anytime soon (for good reason -- including such an easily removable drive in the array simply invites too many opportunities for catastrophic mistakes).