I have played aroud with different setups with my ex480 series. Right now, I am using a mediasonic enclosure with 6.5 TB to backup my server. I have file duplication turned off on everything except a few folders and my total shares is not just under 6.0 TB. I say now because I have been converting some mpg dvd rips to avi in order to free up space. I used to use 3 single bay enclosures for the server backup and had the mediasonic used in the driver pool. I liked the performance of the mediasonic in the driver pool through USB and I would like to use it again. I would also like to possibly buy another mediasonic so I can use file duplication with room to expand.

My "problem" is I want to put together a "plan" to go back to having two server backups with one copy off site at all times. I used to do this with different enclosures, but now I want to use one enclosure and swap out drives. I prefer an 8 bay enclosure for backup only and was wondering if I could use the esata rather than USB. I doubt it, but can I use a simple USB 4 port hub on a USB port from my server to see multiple drives for my server backup.

My thinking is that I skip the 8 bay enclosures that have trays or worse yet screws that make swapping out backups time consuming to go with multiple mediasonic enclosures with the easy little handle on the drive. Can I connect multiple mediasonic bays to a USB 4 port hub that is directly hooked up when doing a server backup to a single USB port on the MSS? I would like to use 2 mediasonic enclosures on one USB (or better yet the esata port) for server backups ONLY and 2 mediasonics connected to their own USB port.

1. Can I use a simple 4 port USB hub to increase the number of drives seen by the MSS for SERVER BACKUP ONLY? (I know this won't work with drives in the share pool.)
2. Can I use the esata if converted to USB like any other USB port on the MSS? Is the lack of port multipler a restriction on the port or a restriction on the port when used as esata?
3. Anyone know of an 8 bay enclosures that is inexpensive and allows for HD to be exchanged even more easily than a mediasonic enclosure (which is only 4 bay)? This question might be a moot point if I can use a USB port hub to increase the number of enclosures being used for server backups only on one MSS USB port or esata port.

HP doesn't support USB hubs, though they may work fine. I'd personally not go that route, though for backups it's probably safe to try it. I'm also not aware of any way to convert the eSATA port to a USB port.

If your storage needs are that great, you might consider investing in a newer server that supports eSATA port multipliers instead as that will be faster and more reliable for server storage, and then use your MediaSonic USB enclosure for backups.

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Alex Kuretz
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Why doesn't HP support the hubs? I've used four hubs attached to my WHS with no issues. Three of the hubs had two Mediasonic enclosures attached and the fourth hub had two Vantec enclosures with with BD Rom drives.
I've just this week been messing around with the USB configuration and am now using one four port USB hub with four of my Mediasonics and one USB hub with two of the Mediasonics. And the BD rom drives are attached directly to the WHS.

I am probably going to keep just two hubs but have 3 Mediasonics attached to each hub. I have a total of 31 drives with 23 attached to the USB. It works fine for me. Although I could not reach 32 drives in the pool. I could only hit 31 drives in my storage pool.

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3TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory
57TB unRAID1a--49TB unRAID2--76TB unRAID3

Here's the support article about USB hubs.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu ... =ot_search

I don't remember all the reasoning behind the original decision, but basically it was more around how hard it would be to support rather than a known technical limitation.

_________________
Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?