any external drive cage reccomendations?

[SomeWhatLost]

what I want to do is move my Parity & SageTV recording drives off my SAS back-plane and onto either the motherboard SATA (preferred) or on to their own SAS bus (this would be fine also, just seems every time the word SAS comes up, the cost goes up exponentially)

there is no space or power to mount the HDD's in the case, and I would prefer to keep them externally swappable anyway... so an external cage seems the way to go...

 

so anyone know of a cheap 4 drive cage, with its own power that you can run 4 SATA/eSATA cables to? seems all the ones I found want to do port multiplying...

 

from the SAS point of view (well, SAS-2 to be specific), anything cheaper than the SANS DIGITAL TR4X6G?

 

[BobPhoenix]

I just used a standard 4x3 drive cage like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002 and bought a power supply from SANS Digital http://store.sansdigital-shop.com/spposufortot1.html that fits their TowerRAID TR5M/TR5M-B for power.

 

 

You may not like the look of it and you do have to be careful - so no kids or animals near it.  But I had mine in the basement and inaccessible to the public so worked well for me.  Even connected the fan to cool the drives.  When I bought mine they were actually for sale by newegg and not a market place seller.  But really isn't anything special about them so another brand would have worked as well.

 

 

If you want an all in one solution that isn't eSata and doesn't use a port multiplier I would suggest this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111183  I have never used it so cannot comment on it other than to suggest it as a possible solution.

 

 

I also used one of these with USB 3.0 until it died on me: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322007  But it would have the same problems as a eSata port multiplier so you probably wouldn't want it.

[SomeWhatLost]

just an update... here is what I ended up doing... (aka I mostly followed BobPhoenix suggestion)

 

2 x Monoprice 107638 2 Port Internal SATA to eSATA Bracket (107638)

4 x Tripp Lite SATA to eSATA Transition Cable (7Pin/7Pin) 3-ft.(P952-003) 

1 x Monoprice PCI Power Panel with (3) 5.25 4-Pin Power Connector (102372)

1 x 36" 4 Pin Molex IDE Male to Female Extension Adapter Cable, Black Sleeved

2 x StarTech LP4 to 2x LP4 Power Y Splitter Cable M/F (PYO2L)

1 x ICY DOCK Black Vortex MB074SP-B Removable 3.5" HDD 4 in 3 Module Cooler Cage

 

can't say I am overly impressed with the icy dock. compared to the Supermicro case, it seems like a cheap toy... although I guess if you compare new $ to new $ it is a cheap toy...

 

but that said, it seems to be working... and as it is just a collection of fairly cheap cables/brackets/etc it didn't break the bank...