Hot swapable PCB in case

[nate42nd]

I am picking a case up today and am wondering if any of you use this method to install hard drives. The case has a PCB board in the back of the hard drive cages. I have heard of this and know it could be handy for RAID but when these boards are present, is there a reason NOT to use them to run your hard drives? Is there any performance hit using them? Do many cases have these?

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...213&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=62&g=spec

 

[mlevy]

Those guys make a nice case. My hope is that the PCB acts more as a conduit than its own device. Actually, I wish my CoolerMaster Cosmos had one, would make for simpler HDD install. As it is right now, both panels have to come off to install or remove an HDD...

I guess the big question is, how does it attach to the MB? Is it one SATA cable or one SATA cable per drive? If it's the former, I could see a possibility of a performance difference (though HDD's can't saturate a SATA-II interface). If it's the latter, any performance hit may be negligible.

Also, is the power distributed from a single power connector or are there 2-3? Some drives could have problems if there's too much draw on the power input.

 

[nate42nd]

I found this on Flickr.

lian li v1000z - Flickr: Search

They both take 3 separate sata cables and one power cable. (very handy) I was *supposed* to have my case right now but the guy I got it from went out of town.

I found out some stuff on the web.

You can use the PCB boards for "hot swapping" in a RAID setup
You can also just use the board as an easy connection. I did read somewhere there is a millisecond or two delay but I run an SSD for my boot drive so it sounds like the boards will stay and come in very handy. I will be so proud next week I will probably post some pics in the "show us your rig" thread.

Just found this too. Similar case about the same features. Interesting. Can't wait. This shows you how it works.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuqZuE5YKT0&feature=related"]YouTube - #974 - Lian Li PC-A7010 Case Video Review[/ame]

The more I look at this video the more I like this case. The one I am getting is a mid tower so it only has 6 hard drive slots instead of 7 like this one, but it looks cool as hell. You could really just use a "normal drive" for backup and other things very easily.