External Enclosure Killing Drives?

[bbddpp]

I have an eSATA-connected external enclosure via a port multiplier card connecting extra drives to my FreeNAS (ran out of physical drive space inside my small tower).

Long story short, drives in the enclosure keep dying on me or becoming error-prone. Drives in the tower (older, slower) are rock solid. I have never had a problem. But now I have the 3rd hard drive in the last 6 months inside this external enclosure giving me trouble. Too many for coincidence.

So my question is this - Where would you look first? Enclosure hardware itself? Port multiplier card in the computer? Cable going from computer to external enclosure?

I verified drive temps are good and fans in the enclosure are working so it's not a heat or ventilation thing...So what's my next stop?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[jgreco]

Ditch the enclosure, ditch the port multiplier, get a larger tower, and be happy. It is very hard to tell which item is causing you trouble, and there are solid reasons to avoid such setups.

 

[ewhac]

Ditch the enclosure, ditch the port multiplier, get a larger tower, and be happy. It is very hard to tell which item is causing you trouble, and there are solid reasons to avoid such setups.

What he said. Which, now having been said:

My gut suspicion is either:

1. The power supply in your external enclosure; or
2. Insufficient surge protection on the external enclosure.

A good power supply will eat some power spikes; a crap power supply will happily pass them on to your devices. No matter what you're building, get a reputable power supply, and then plug it in to a reputable surge protector. The extra money you spend will amount to less than what you'd pay to replace even one ruined hard drive.

 

[bbddpp]

Thanks for the replies. I've got a fairly old system - Other than the obvious power supply issues, is there really any limit to how many drives you can have through the addition of extra port cards, etc, in a basic desktop? I may just be outgrowing that form factor.

The enclosure seemed like a good idea but that port multiplier just seems to not play too well.

 

[jgreco]

Given sufficient cooling and power, you can take it as far as you like. There are tower server cases that will do twelve or sixteen or more drives.