Big PC boxes (was: SCSI Bus Problem?

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_postoffice.idirect.com>
Date: Tue Feb 12 10:59:43 2002

>Jeffrey S. Sharp wrote:

> >On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Tothwolf wrote:
> > I certainly make use of the extra bays...and it is by no means a "quiet"
> > system.
> My PC is loud, but I like it that way. It lives in my bedroom, and its
> soft, constant noise helps me go to sleep at night. Heck, I recently
> added two of those 'hard drive coolers' (3.5"-to-5.25" bracket and a grill
> (holding 3 fans) to replace the bay cover) just to increase the noise.
> Hey, it keeps my system cooler, too!
> That machine now has 12 fans in it of some sort or another. That much in
> an ATX mid-tower case.

Jerome Fine replies:

What do you do for power in your system?

When I refer to a separate PC power supply, the AC current will be
from the same power bar as the internal 300 watt power supply. I
use a power bar "rescued" from a DEC cabinet used for RL02 drives.
This keeps the discussion on topic since the power bar is 20 years old.

I have a 300 Watt power supply in my "big" box to supply 9 of the drives,
but I drew the line at that point. I use a separate ordinary PC power
supply to power the SCSI hard drive with their own 3 1/2" fan as well.
The latter two items were "rescued" from a box that was used to power
4 ESDI 5 1/4" full height drives, so I presume it has sufficient power to
run the three 3 1/2" SCSI hard drives and a bit to spare.

Also, eventually, I want to add 2 more EIDE drives to the system, so
the current 9 drives will become 11.

Question: Since the rest of the drives will be CDROMs and floppy
which will be rarely used and certainly not all at once, will 4 EIDE
3 1/2" Maxtor drives be too much when combined with the other
2 IDE CDROM drives, 2 SCSI CDROM drives, 2 floppy drives
and 1 SCSI Zip 100 drive?

Question: Can anyone see any problem with using a separate PC power
supply for the SCSI hard drives?

Question: I may also switch the 2 SCSI CDROM drives for SCSI
3 1/2" hard drives. If so, can I still power them from the internal
power supply or should I switch to the outside power supply?
Otherwise, that would make 6 hard drives in total on the internal
power supply.

Question: Is an additional ground wire between the separate PC
power supplies needed or recommended or even helpful when
the AC 110 volt supply is from the same power bar? The ground
wire would connect the frame of the "big" box with the case of
the external power supply.
Received on Tue Feb 12 2002 - 10:59:43 GMT