Need to replace MediaSonic ProBox that died

[gtaus]

My ~10 year old MediaSonic ProBox died today. Will no longer recognize the USB interface. So my DrivePool is now down hard because I have 4 drives offline. At first I was just going to replace the old MediaSonic ProBox with a new one. However, current price on the MediaSonic ProBox is now close to $200. When I bought my ProBox, it was $50. OK, sticker shock. But this leads me to question other options. Individual USB enclosures are around $25, so about $100 for 4 enclosures to replace the ProBox. Have also looked at dual docking stations for about $36 each, or $72 for my 4 drives. Are there other options I have not considered? Don't know if anyone here has some recent advice on enclosure purchases, but would appreciate any help in deciding how to move forward. Thanks.

[Rob Manderson]

Where are you located?  I have 7 proboxes in total.  One contains my backup set, one is for general usage and 5 are unused.  Complete including the original box.  If you're in the US you can have one for the price of shipping.

I moved all my drives out of the Proboxes and into a NetApp DS4246 Disk Shelf but I was lucky, I bought just before Chia and the price was still reasonable.

And I didn't think to add this until after posting :-)  PM me if you're interested and we'll sort it out.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Rob Manderson
After thoughts.

[gtaus]

@Rob Manderson, Thanks for the offer. Attempted to send you a PM with some info.

[dsteinschneider]

Hi Rob,

Do you still have the Proboxes. I'm interested - I've had good look with the two I currently have. I've been using their SATA multiplexer card - before that the Proboxes kept dropping off when I was using Rosewill cards

 

[Hilton]

I just got sick of the Mediasonic boxes randomly dropping drives (USB-C 10Gbit and USB-A 5Gbit) and occasionally corrupting partitions.  Lucky I know how to recover partitions... comes in handy from having worked for EMC and NetApp for half my IT career...

I just upgraded this week to Silverstone DS380 8 bay backplane SFF case with 8088 to 8087 PCI bracket and LSI 9201 16E SAS/SATA HBA in my NUC Extreme.  Just moved the drives over no problem... quite a bit faster and more reliable already!

The 9200 just barely fit in the NUC but the 9201 had a little room to spare. (shorter card length by 15mm or so)

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

SAS HBA by Hilton, on Flickr

2 x dual port 8087 internal to 8088 external PCI adaptors plus
4 x 1M 8088 to 8088 SAS cables.  - $191 from Amazon

61aaLpSUgxL._AC_SX679_ by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

DS380 JBOD by Hilton, on Flickr

 

 

 

[AntaresFR]

Very interesting Hilton
What are you using to power on your two DS380 without motherboard ?

Regards

[RetroG]

regarding power:
to use a PSU without a motherboard An "ATX Jumpstarter" AKA an ATX connector that connects Pin 14 to ground.
you can also tie this to a power switch but it must be a latching type (most cases have push button style power buttons)


if you want a little future expandability (and the ability to use less and longer cables) you can replace the SAS breakout brackets with a SAS expander. my personal pick would be the AEC-82885T (although that uses Mini-SAS HD connectors, 8643+8644).

this would allow you to use SATA disks using longer cables (SATA cables use a lower signaling voltage) and allow you to connect just one SAS cable to each JBOD. (yes, you are connecting 8 disks using one 4 lane 6Gb or 12Gb link, but it's barely noticeable for spinning drives)