[ale] what to do with dozens of 40GB IDE drives?

[Calvin Harrigan]

Christopher Bergeron wrote:

>Hey guys -
>
>I just took ownership of 25 (to 50) brand new 40 GB Hard Disk drives, 
>and I have no clue what to do with them.  I run an LTSP shop ( ltsp 
>rocks! ), so my machines don't need HD's.  I optimized the hell out of 
>them as much as I can (they're running dnetc/seti clients, etc).  I just 
>realized that I have dozens of 40GB drives that aren't even being 
>powered up, and I'm trying to figure out how to put them to good use.  
>I'd like to create a fileserver array, but I'm not sure where to begin.  
>I've looked at NFS, but the LTSP clients network boot over NFS, so I 
>don't want to over complicate the network by having the clients act as 
>NFS servers too.
>
>Does anyone know of any hardware that I can plug 'lots' of IDE drives 
>into?  I've looked at SAN / Disk Array solutions but they all seem to 
>ship WITH drives.  I'd love to find a 12 or 15 disk case and backplane 
>that I can populate with my own IDE drives.  Does such a beast exist?
>
>Also, before/if it's suggested, I've already designated several of these 
>drives for charity.
>
>Your guys' thoughts?   What would you do with 40 40GB IDE drives?
>
>Thanks again,
>CB
>
>_______________________________________________
>Ale mailing list
>Ale at ale.org
>http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>  
>
I'll trade you 3-40's for a single 120 still brand new in the box...
What brand are they anyway? The 120 is a seagate.  Just bought it 
today.  Smallest drive I could find (imagine that).  I was really 
looking for a 20,40 or at the most an 80 gig.  It's for an older machine.