Is there any hope to see a fit-PC that can take a 3.5" drive?
For a machine such as the fit-pc2i running as a server, it would make a lot of sense, since 3.5" drives are much cheaper and allow much larger capacity. And with drives such as WD Caviar Green, they don't generate that much more heat than laptop drives.
In the mean time, has someone tried to replace the fit-pc2i's enclosure by another one that makes it possible to use a 3.5" drive?
3.5" drive
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irads
Re: 3.5" drive
That defeats the idea of fit-PC2 on size and power. See how it looks - http://www.fit-pc2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&p=4256
Re: 3.5" drive
I don't think it would necessarily defeat fit-pc2i's advantages: even with a 3.5" disk, it could still be very small. And as mentioned, the power consumption (and noise) of "green" 3.5" drives is not that much higher than average laptop drives.
I'm no advocating dropping the current models, but rather adding another. 3.5" drives are much better suited to always-on server-style workloads, which seem like a niche that suits the fit-pc2i very well.
FWIW, I currently use a WL-700gE with a 1TB drive for that purpose (also fanless, not much larger than the 3.5" drive itself), but the fit-pc2i would provide a lot more oomph without eating up significantly more power.
Since noone seem to have actually tried it: would there be a risk in running a fit-pc2i without the case, or with a different case (after all, IIUC its case works as a heatsink, so removing it could cause components to heat up more)?
I'm no advocating dropping the current models, but rather adding another. 3.5" drives are much better suited to always-on server-style workloads, which seem like a niche that suits the fit-pc2i very well.
FWIW, I currently use a WL-700gE with a 1TB drive for that purpose (also fanless, not much larger than the 3.5" drive itself), but the fit-pc2i would provide a lot more oomph without eating up significantly more power.
Since noone seem to have actually tried it: would there be a risk in running a fit-pc2i without the case, or with a different case (after all, IIUC its case works as a heatsink, so removing it could cause components to heat up more)?
Re: 3.5" drive
"Would there be a risk in running a fit-pc2i without the case, or with a different case . . . "
You can probably achieve the same result more elegantly by using a M-F SATA lead (takes a little hunting) to connect the Fit-PC to an externally-mounted, self-powered disk drive.
I've done it with a 2.5" drive but a 3.5" one should work equally well. A small (500 gm) cast-iron weight from a set of kitchen scales which I rest on top of the Fit-PC to stop it sliding about also makes a very effective heat sink.
Simple, cheap, non-intrusive, works a treat . . .
Dave
You can probably achieve the same result more elegantly by using a M-F SATA lead (takes a little hunting) to connect the Fit-PC to an externally-mounted, self-powered disk drive.
I've done it with a 2.5" drive but a 3.5" one should work equally well. A small (500 gm) cast-iron weight from a set of kitchen scales which I rest on top of the Fit-PC to stop it sliding about also makes a very effective heat sink.
Simple, cheap, non-intrusive, works a treat . . .
Dave
Re: 3.5" drive
I would be very interested in this as currently i'm looking at having to still have my old fileserver. Which a New Green 2TB drive and a fitpci it would replace 2 iu servers at 99% less power, but the largest 2.5 is still only around 500GB and would not be large enough.
Re: 3.5" drive
Hehe, 3.5" drives are so big and the FIT-PC2i is so small you could probably dump the case and mount the SBC directly to the mounting holes on the bottom of the drive...
You'd have to build a little beefier power supply to operate the drive, but it wouldn't take any effort at all to run leads from the ground and +12v wires up to the SBC to power it.
With the appropriate Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive, it would add 1.2watts of power consumption.
Unless you plan on this being a stationary device though, you're going to run into problems with gyroscopic forces. For an idea of what I mean, pull a hot swappable hard drive out of a raid array while the drive is still in ops and try to rotate it. The obvious solution to that is solid state storage but SSDs tend to be more power hungry, with Western Digitals line-up of SSDs consuming on average 3.5watts of power.
3.5watts is a little better than 50% of the fit-pc2i's average load and just under 50% of it's peak load.
If you can sacrifice performance, I'd suggest an external USB drive like the Western Digital Passport or Passport SE. They don't specify the power requirements of these devices but USB 2.0 outputs 500mA at 12V for a total of 2.5watts available. I doubt the passports consume that, but lacking information, I'd make the assumption it does.
Power-wise, you're better off with an external USB drive. Performance-wise, you can get some rather nice 3.5" drives that do 15k RPM now on SATA-3 (which is backwards compatible with SATA-2).
You'd have to build a little beefier power supply to operate the drive, but it wouldn't take any effort at all to run leads from the ground and +12v wires up to the SBC to power it.
With the appropriate Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive, it would add 1.2watts of power consumption.
Unless you plan on this being a stationary device though, you're going to run into problems with gyroscopic forces. For an idea of what I mean, pull a hot swappable hard drive out of a raid array while the drive is still in ops and try to rotate it. The obvious solution to that is solid state storage but SSDs tend to be more power hungry, with Western Digitals line-up of SSDs consuming on average 3.5watts of power.
3.5watts is a little better than 50% of the fit-pc2i's average load and just under 50% of it's peak load.
If you can sacrifice performance, I'd suggest an external USB drive like the Western Digital Passport or Passport SE. They don't specify the power requirements of these devices but USB 2.0 outputs 500mA at 12V for a total of 2.5watts available. I doubt the passports consume that, but lacking information, I'd make the assumption it does.
Power-wise, you're better off with an external USB drive. Performance-wise, you can get some rather nice 3.5" drives that do 15k RPM now on SATA-3 (which is backwards compatible with SATA-2).
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Superschüssel
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2010 4:02 pm
Re: 3.5" drive
What about ripping off the 2.5" HD and connecting a 3.5" instead? You just had to place a longer SATA cable to the fit-PC2. Then you could mount the fit-PC2 on top of your 3.5" HD and all should be fine.