Help building a PC that can image a dozen hard drives simultaneously

disk-imagehard drive

Not sure if this belongs on here or SuperUser, but here goes…

I'm trying to figure out how to make a mass hard drive imaging PC out of COTS parts. A dedicated imaging device can do 10 drives at a time, but costs several thousand dollars. So far, I'm thinking to use several 3-port PCI-E Firewire cards, and use some kind of Firewire-to-IDE adapter to connect the drives themselves. The "software" would consist of scripting diskpart, or some other imaging utility.

The problem is that I can't seem to find any sort of adapter. I could use standard external hard drive bays, but then I'd have a dozen power cables that I need to plug in. Ugly, messy, and inefficient. I picked Firewire over USB not only for better transfer speeds, but also because FW can deliver power over the bus (and could theoretically power a hard drive). Does anyone have any input on this?

Best Answer

Buying a handful of PCI-E Firewire cards and then buying a bunch of Firewire to IDE/SATA adapters seems far, far messier than even having ten external hard drive bays. Nonetheless, here's my opinion on how to create a good imaging station:

Buy a large tower case that has 10 or 12 external facing 5.25 inch bays. All of your IDE / SATA cables and power cables will be housed inside the case. You will also have a bevy of high powered fans to keep the drives cool while they are all operating in unison. It would look something like this:

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Those IDE to Firewire adapters aren't the cheapest. A good one is $25. Times that by ten... you can afford a case like the above. Inexpensive, clean... and it looks darn cool. Success!

Interface (connectors):

laptop PATA vs SATA http://www.laptopparts101.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sata-ide-laptop-hard-drive.jpg

Parallel ATA a.k.a. IDE, ATA, ATAPI, UDMA and PATA — legacy, wide 40-pin connector for disks produced few years ago. In case of notebook drives pins are smaller, and there is also power supply in the same plug.
Serial ATA (SATA) — modern connector. Most modern laptops use it. 6 data pins and 15 pins including power supply.

Sizes of laptop disks:

1.8" and 2.5"

2.5" — most common
1.8" — reduced, used mostly in ultralights and netbooks.

Rotation speed:

7200RPM — modern, high-end 2.5" disks. Consume more energy.
5400RPM — standard, low-end 2.5"disks or high-end 1.8"disks. More energy-efficient.
4200RPM — legacy, low-end 2.5" disks, some modern reduced height and energy-efficient 2,5" or standard 1.8"disks.

Take in account, that 5400RPM HDD with bigger capacity actually might have faster transfer rates, than smaller capacity 7200RPM. Rotation speed does however directly affect seek times.

HDD vs. SSD:

Modern alternative to mechanical HDDs are Solid State Drives, based on flash memory. They have almost instantaneous seek times, incredible read speeds and very low power consumption. As of now they are still much lower capacity than similarly priced HDDs. However, with the effects of Thailand floods and sharp drop in SSD prices in recent years, there are no longer excessively expensive. SSD can come in 2.5" SATA form factor, thus be interchangeable with 2.5" HDD. Another form factor, unique to SSDs is Mini-SATA (mSATA), intended mostly for use with netbooks (and some ultraportables). Below mSATA drive on top of 2.5" SATA HDD for size comparison:

mSATA compared with 2.5" SATA HDD

Note, that ultrabooks use neither of these formats. In ultrabooks SSDs are soldered permanently onto motherboard, thus cannot be removed nor upgraded.

Best Answer

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Intro to Laptop Hard Drives

Interface (connectors):

Sizes of laptop disks:

Rotation speed:

HDD vs. SSD:

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