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Build Your Own Four Bay Enclosure
A review of the Addonics Storage Tower Enclosure (ST5ESA1US)
By Arthur Whalem


The Addonics Storage Tower model ST5ESA1US ($149) is a four bay 5.25" external enclosure that supports SATA or USIB connections. It can be used with internal 3.5" drive brackets (AAHDMK53), removable mobile racks, hard drive coolers, 5.25" DVD-RW burners or internal RAID cages like the Addonics Disk Array 4SA. The enclosure weighs 9.1 pounds empty. Install four 3.5" SATA hard drives into the Storage Tower and it will weigh approximately 16 pounds. The Addonics Storage Tower is one of the least expensive aluminum external eSATA four bay enclosures that I have seen. The reason that the Storage Tower has a low initial price is that it only includes the enclosure body, a rear connection panel, a package of screws and a power cord. Nothing else. eSATA cables, USIB cables, hard drive mounting brackets and drives are all sold separately. The Addonics Storage Tower is a basic construction kit that allows you to create a custom external enclosure for mounting a variety of different storage devices.

System Requirements
Macintosh, Windows or Linux computers.
Requires external SATA ports and/or USIB cables.
Requires up to four external storage devices.
Backward compatible with SATA-1 to eSATA cables.

Storage Tower Available Configurations
In addition to the Addonics Storage Tower model ST5ESA1US which is being reviewed in this article, there are several other Storage Tower configurations that you may want to be aware of. Each model is listed below with a brief description.

Model ST4US ($165) comes with a rear plate that provides connections for up to four USIB devices. USIB is a special connector that can be used to connect an IDE or an ATAPI device to a FireWire 400, USB 2.0 or SATA connection using the proper USIB interface cable. The Storage Tower model ST4US has four USIB ports. As USB 2.0 is slower than FireWire 400 when used with hard drives, Macintosh users of the ST4US will probably want to utilize the USIB ports with FireWire 400 USIB cables (AAFWC406 $45). Each USIB port requires its own USIB cable in order to connect the drive to the computer. In this configuration you would pay $165 for the enclosure plus up to $180 for four external USIB FireWire cables. As the USIB FireWire 400 connection has no ability to daisy chain FireWire devices you may also need to purchase a FireWire 400 PCI card to support up to four FireWire 400 connections on a Macintosh. SATA connections are significantly faster than FireWire 400. As such, PowerMac G5 users with an external SATA PCI host adapter will probably find Storage Tower model ST5ESA1US to be a better option.

Model ST4ESA ($135) comes with a rear plate that provides connections for up to four eSATA cables. This model is $14 less than the ST5ESA1US but it only has four eSATA connections and no USIB adapter. This is a good choice for someone who just wants to install four SATA hard drives. Hard drives could be mounted using 5.25" to 3.5" brackets (AAHDMK53) or with 5.25" mobile racks. This model does not provide the connections needed for mounting more than four SATA drives or a DVD burner. Personally, I think the extra $14 for model ST5ESA1US provides greater storage flexibility at a very small additional cost.

Model ST5ESA1US ($149) comes with a rear plate that provides connections for up to five eSATA cables plus one USIB device. This model is the subject of this article. This model allows you to use an IDE hard drive or a DVD burner on the USIB connector with a USIB FireWire cable (AAFWC406 $45). In addition, you can use the other three 5 1/4" drive bays with 5 1/4" to 3.5" drive bay mounting brackets (AAHDMK53 $3.50), mobile racks or with an Addonics Disk Array 4SA drive cage. There are several internal drive cage models available for 5.25" drive bays. The Storage Tower model ST5ESA1US allows you to expand the capacity of this enclosure past four devices.

Model STMPC ($125) comes with no connector plate on the back of the Addonics Storage Tower. This model was released after the AMUG Super-mini project published how the Addonics Storage Tower could be used to create a Super-mini with the Mac mini mounted inside the Storage Tower. The Mac mini fits in the bottom of the enclosure and two drives can be mounted in the Addonics Storage Tower drive bays which can be connected to the Mac mini internal 2.5" IDE connector using a 3.5" to 2.5" IDE adapter. You can read more about the AMUG Super-mini project by clicking on the image located beside this text or visiting the AMUG Review section at www.amug.org.

As you can see the Addonics Storage Tower is available in several different models. The unit that will be discussed for the remainder of this article is model ST5ESA1US ($149).

Storage Tower (ST5ESA1US) Connections
The Storage Tower model ST5ESA1US has five eSATA connections on the rear of the enclosure along with one USIB connector. This unit works well for mounting SATA hard drives in an external enclosure along with a 5.25" device like a DVD burner. Using the USIB connection requires that you have a USIB cable. As FireWire 400 is faster than USB 2.0 for storage device connections, I will be using a USIB FireWire 400 cable (AAFWC406 $45) to connect a Pioneer DVR to a PowerMac G5. In addition, a FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 PCI card is being used to provide external eSATA "I type" ports on the PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz for this article. The Addonics Storage Tower aluminum side panels easily come off with a single thumb screw. Inside you will find five SATA cables to connect to internal SATA hard drives and an IDE cable that can be used to connect an ATA (IDE) device to the USIB connector located on the rear left side of the connector panel. Four pin molex power plugs are provided for powering your storage devices. If your hard drives require SATA power you can purchase adapters. SVC.com sells SATA "Y" power adapters for $2.49 (CBL-Y-SATA-P). I used two SATA power adapters to test the Storage Tower with four SATA hard drives. You may wonder why a four bay enclosure has five eSATA connectors on the back. The reason is that Addonics offers the Disk Array 4SA SATA hard drive cage that allows four removable hard drives to fit in the space of three 5.25" bays. In addition, Addonics plans to offer several other drive cages in the near future. Using the Disk Array 4SA still leaves one bay open for use with another hard drive or a DVD recorder. If you choose to add an Addonics Disk Array 4SA SATA hard drive cage inside the Storage Tower you will not need SATA power adapters as the Disk Array uses four pin molex power connectors that are already provided inside the Storage Tower.

Design and Build Your Own Four Bay Enclosure
The Addonics Storage Tower (ST5ESA1US) is a construction kit. You buy only the items that you need. You will need to decide which options you want. As part of this review, the Storage Tower was setup in three configurations to give you an idea of some of the possibilities. Each setup will include costs, acoustics, cooling and performance data.

The Basic Setup
The goal of the "Basic Setup" configuration is to keep the enclosure costs low, while still being able to mount four hard drives inside the Addonics Storage Tower. Four 3.5" 300GB SATA Maxtor hard drives were mounted in the Storage Tower using four 5.25" to 3.5" drive bay mounting brackets (AAHDMK53) at a cost of $3.50 each. Two SATA "Y" power adapters at $2.49 each (CBL-Y-SATA-P) were used to power the Maxtor SATA hard drives. Four 39 inch eSATA to eSATA cables (AAESATA100C) were utilized at a price of $19.99 each. If your host adapter has SATA "L type" connectors like the FirmTek SeriTek/1VE4 does you will need eSATA "I type" to SATA "L type" cables (AASA2SA100C) at $20.89 each instead. To increase cooling two 80mm fans were added ($15). This minimal configuration cost is $149 for the enclosure, $34.98 for four brackets/adapters/fans and $79.96 for eSATA shielded external cables. Total cost of the "Basic Setup" is $262.94 plus shipping.

Acoustics: The Storage Tower has an internal power supply with a fan that is fairly quiet. However, it also has a 40x40x28 Dynatron 12v case fan that is louder than the PowerMac G5. This fan moves 11.48 CFM of air and has a sound rating of 39dBA. I found the Dynatron fan noise can become tiresome to the ears after an extended period of time. One advantage that the Storage Tower has is that you can change its acoustics. You can unplug the stock Dynatron fan from the rear power board and replace it with a quieter 40mm fan like the 40mm Papst 412FM ($16.95). A better option for me was to simply unplug the 40mm original case fan and mount two 80mm case fans in the rear of the enclosure. I mounted an Antec 80mm TRICOOL ($5) on one side of enclosure (set at the middle speed setting) and a Panaflo FBA08T12L ($10) on the other side. In this configuration, the Storage Tower is near the same noise level as the PowerMac G5 and is much cooler. After making the fan changes the primary noise that could be heard from the enclosure while the PowerMac G5 was running was the Maxtor hard drives accessing data.

Cooling: To test the standard Addonics Storage Tower 40x40x28 case fan cooling capability, a four drive Maxtor 300GB SATA striped RAID set was mounted inside the Addonics Storage Tower. The RAID was constantly active for an hour duplicating 4.2GB and running DiskTester speed tests. After an hour the Maxtor drives reported temperatures of 129.2 to 132.8 degrees Fahrenheit using Hardware Monitor 3.1. It was clear that the RAID was heading for even higher temperatures. I did not continue to test for the full 90 minutes as it was obvious that the single 40mm case fan provided with the Storage Tower was not enough to keep a four drive RAID cool.

As the Storage Tower has four pin molex power adapters inside the enclosure, you can add not only hard drives but different fans to customize your cooling. Since the original 40mm fan is rather loud I disconnected it. Next, I attached an Antec 80mm TRICOOL ($5) to the rear side of the drive cage pointing it at a 45 degree angle toward the back of the hard drives. Then, a second Panaflo FBA08T12L ($10) 80x80x15 case fan was attached to the other side of the enclosure drive railing blowing out toward the side panel. The aluminum side panels have 1,400 ventilation holes incorporated in their design which allows internal case fans to work well. I started the temperature test again with the new dual 80mm case fan combination. The four drive RAID was once again active duplicating several 4.2GB folders simultaneously and running DiskTester speed tests. This time after 90 minutes the Maxtor hard drives reported temperatures of 100.4 to 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, the enclosure was allowed to sit idle for two hours while the RAID was still mounted on the desktop of a PowerMac G5. After two hours with no activity, the four Maxtor hard drives reported temperatures ranging from 96.8 to 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit using Hardware Monitor 3.1. As a comparison a Maxtor 300GB mounted internally in the PowerMac G5 reported a temperature of 102.2 degrees at the end of this test. The fan modification not only kept the enclosure quiet but decreased hard drive temperatures by over 20 degrees. You could cool your hard drives even more by using a Vantec 3.5" Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler $9.99 on some of the drives too.

Performance: The Addonics Storage Tower was tested using DiskTester. It measures the combined performance of a volume and the Mac OS X operating system. DiskTester is a Terminal application which requires using Mac OS X Terminal with a command line executable. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --transfer-size 131072 --iterations 3 --test-size 1024 --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID or an individual drive performs when empty, 10% full 20% full and so on. You can see the results of the four drive Maxtor RAID DiskTester report below. The data shows that the performance of the four drive RAID set write performance is over 260MB/sec when empty. Once the drive is 50% full the transfer rate drops to a write speed of 222MB/sec using this 1GB speed test.

Maxtor 300GB SATA Four Drive Striped RAID DiskTester Performace

The performance of any striped RAID set is primarily determined by the speed of the host adapter and the hard drives used. In this case, a FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 PCI host adapter was used with four Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives and a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 GHz.

The Combo Setup
The goal of the "Combo Setup" is to give you an idea of some of the various ways you can setup the Storage Tower using different drive mounting methods. The Addonics Storage Tower can be modified to fit many different needs. In the image to the right a Pioneer A09XLS DVR is installed in the top bay and an Addonics SATA Mobile Rack II (AENRHDSA35-R) is installed in the next bay. In the two lower bays two Maxtor 300GB SATA drives are installed using 5 1/4" to 3.5" drive bay mounting brackets (AAHDMK53). You will need a USIB FireWire 400 cable (AAFWC406 $45) to connect the Pioneer DVR to a Macintosh. The SATA hard drives require that a host adapter be installed in a PowerMac G5 or PowerMac G4 to be able to connect to the computer. The coolest feature that the Storage Tower provides is flexibility. In this configuration you have two stationary internal hard drives, a removable mobile rack and an external DVR for use with an Apple PowerMac. To build this "Combo Setup" you will need the Addonics Storage Tower (ST5ESA1US) $149, Addonics SATA Mobile Rack II (AENRHDSA35-R) $39.99, two 5 1/4" to 3.5" drive bay mounting brackets (AAHDMK53) $7, three 39 inch eSATA to eSATA cables (AAESATA100C) at $19.99 each, one USIB FireWire 400 cable (AAFWC406 $45) and an Antec 80mm TRICOOL fan ($5). The total cost is $305.96 plus shipping and the cost of any drives installed.

Acoustics: The original Storage Tower 40mm fan was disconnected as it is a little loud. An Antec 80mm TRICOOL fan ($5) was mounted behind the two bottom internal hard drives and placed on the middle setting. In this configuration, the Storage Tower is quieter than the PowerMac G5 when the Addonics SATA Mobile Rack is turned off. Once the Mobile Rack II is turned on (by turning the key to the on position) a 40mm fan in the front of the mobile rack turns on which causes the Storage Tower to become a little louder than the PowerMac G5.


Cooling: I attached an Antec 80mm TRICOOL fan ($5) to the rear side of the drive cage pointing it at a 45 degree angle toward the back of the hard drives. The temperature tests were started only using a single Antec 80mm case fan. The two internal 300GB drives and a 300GB Maxtor in the Mobile Rack were worked hard duplicating 4.2GB folders and running DiskTester speed tests for 90 minutes. Next, the drives were left mounted on a PowerMac G5 for two more hours to see how they might cool down. At the end of the test, the two internal Maxtor SATA 300GB hard drives displayed 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit using Hardware Monitor 3.1. The Mobile Rack mounted hard drive displayed 102.2 degrees. The Addonics SATA Mobile Rack II (AENRHDSA35-R) provides much better cooling than some other mobile racks I have tested.

Performance & Mounting: The Storage Tower performance is primarily determined by the SATA host adapter that you utilize inside a PowerMac and the hard drives installed. Using the Storage Tower with single drives, as was done in the Combo Setup will provide performance similar to most other SATA enclosures. The same applies to the FireWire 400 connection. There are many interesting mounting options available for 5.25" bays like the ones provided by the Storage Tower. One method that works well is the Lian-Li EX-34 Silver Expansion kit ($35.95). This kit allows you to place four 3.5" hard drives in three of the Storage Tower bays and still have another bay left for adding another drive. This could be used for five SATA drives or four drives plus a DVR as shown in the image to the right. The Lian-Li EX-34 has a 120mm fan in the front and keeps the hard drives very cool. I found the fan was a little louder than I wanted, so I replaced it with a Nexus 120mm Real Silent Case Fan D12SL-12 ($16). The Nexus fan model D12SL-12, makes the Lian-Li EX-34 very quiet and it is easy to install. As you can see in the image above the silver model looks good with the Addonics Storage Tower. I like the idea of being able to mount five SATA drives in the Storage Tower at a minimum cost and the Lian-Li EX-34 does it well. The Lian-Li EX-34 is also available in black. If you wanted to mount six SATA hard drives inside the Storage Tower and remove the USIB connector on the back so that you could snake out a sixth SATA cable it is possible using two Lian-Li EX-23 HDD Modules at $23 each. You can see a picture of them installed in the Storage Tower on the left. These modules allow you to install three hard drives in the space of two 5.25" drive bays. Using two of these stacked can provide space for up to six SATA hard drives in the Addonics Storage Tower. The EX-23 has an 80mm fan mounted in the front. If the 80mm fan is a little louder than you would like it to be, I found the 80mm Antec Tricool double ball bearing fan ($8) can be can be used instead. I placed it on the middle fan setting for quiet running. The EX-23 is also available in black. Another mounting option is the Thermaltake iCage ($18.99). It provides three 3.5" hard drive bays in three 5.25" bays and looks very cool with its blue lighted 120mm fan in front. The specs show that the fan is very quiet. The iCage does not expand your storage but it does provide great cooling, 3.5" hard drive mounting and a new age look. One other mounting option I found is the 3 To 4 Bracket for Stacker ($21). This is very similar to the function of the EX-34 as it places four 3.5" hard drives in a space equal to three 5.25" bays but it is a more basic design. An image of it is shown in black on the left. I was able to try the Stacker and it is well built. The fan is ultra quiet and keeps the hard drives usually below 100 degrees even under heavy use. This is pretty amazing when you consider how close the drives are stacked together.

Another adapter that you could use with the Storage Tower is the Addonics IDE to Serial ATA Converter (ADIDESA) $19.94. This converter will allow you to utilize an IDE hard drive inside the Storage Tower as it converts IDE to SATA. With these adapters you could use either IDE or SATA hard drives inside the Storage Tower. I have not tested all of the drive cage options listed in this article but at least now you have an idea of some of the cool things you can place inside the Addonics Storage Tower. You simply decide what the purpose of the Storage Tower will be and then add any of these mounting possibilities to your Storage Tower. If you change your mind later, the Storage Tower can always be converted to fit your new storage needs.

The Hot Swap Setup
The goal of the "Hot Swap Setup" is to give you an idea of how you can use the Storage Tower in a SATA hot swap configuration. The Addonics Disk Array 4SA (AE4RCS35NSA) is available on Amazon for $111. This four bay hot swap case fits inside the Addonics Storage Tower leaving one bay free. In this example, an Addonics SATA Mobile Rack II (AENRHDSA35-R) is installed in the top bay. This provides five removable 3.5" hard drive bays that can be mounted or removed while the PowerMac is operating using a hot swap host adapter card like the Firmtek SeriTek/1eVE4. If you want to use all five drive bays at the same time you will need two host adapters as the 1eV4 only has four ports. To build the "Hot Swap Setup" you will need the Addonics Storage Tower (ST5ESA1US) $149, an Addonics Disk Array 4SA (AE4RCS35NSA) $111, an Addonics SATA Mobile Rack II (AENRHDSA35-R) $39.99, five 39 inch eSATA to eSATA cables (AAESATA100C) at $19.99 each, an Antec 80mm TRICOOL fan ($5) and a Panaflo fan FBA08T12L ($10). The total cost is $414.94 plus shipping and the cost of any drives or host adapters that might be needed.

Acoustics: The stock Storage Tower 40mm fan was disconnected as it is louder than I wanted the fans to be. An Antec 80mm TRICOOL fan ($5) was mounted behind the hard drives, blowing air out of the side panel. It was placed on the middle RPM setting. The Disk Array 4SA has an 80x80x20mm 12v fan model TFD-8020H12C installed behind the hot swap trays. This fan is louder than the PowerMac G5. It has an RPM of 3000, moves 35.45 cubic feet of air per minute and has a sound level of 31dBA. While this is a great cooling fan and works very well for a server, you may want to utilize a quieter fan if the enclosure will be located near you. Addonics plans to provide a switch on the Disk Array 4SA in the future that will allow the user to lower the fan speed, but the model used in this article does not have that feature. I replaced the stock Disk Array 4A fan with a Panaflo 80x80x15mm fan model FBA08T12L. This fan has an RPM of 2000, moves 21.9 cubic feet of air per minute and has a sound level of 23dBA. The Panaflo fan is very quiet but does not move as much air. The Panaflo fan is 5mm smaller in width so two washers were used with the existing fan screws to install the new fan where the original fan was mounted. A four pin molex connector in the Storage Tower was used to power the Panaflo fan. This new configuration allowed the "Hot Swap Setup" to be a little quieter than the PowerMac G5 when the mobile rack was off, and just a little louder than the PowerMac G5 when the 40mm fan in the mobile rack was running. While the enclosure in this configuration is relatively quiet, occasionally a metallic vibration noise could be heard from the enclosure.

Cooling: With the Antec 80mm TRICOOL fan ($5) in the rear of the enclosure and the Disk Array 4A fan replaced with the Panaflo fan FBA08T12L ($10), the Storage Tower was tested with five Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives installed as a striped RAID set. For 90 minutes the RAID was worked hard duplicating several 4.2GB folders and running DiskTester speed tests. At the end of 90 minutes the four Maxtor drives mounted in the 4SA reported a temperature of 109.4 degrees Fahrenheit using Hardware Monitor 3.1. The Mobile Rack 300GB reported a temperature of 104 degrees. The five drive striped RAID set remained mounted but was inactive for an additional 90 minutes except for temperature monitoring. This test demonstrates how the enclosure might cool down. After 90 minutes of sitting idle, the four Maxtor 300GB drives mounted in the 4SA reported a temperature of 104 degrees and the Mobile Rack 300GB was 102.2 degrees. I also found that when using the mobile rack tray without the top aluminum cover plate the hard drive temperature dropped to 98.6 degrees. The cooling in the Storage Tower using this dual fan combination is very good. Typically, hot swap trays add some heat when compared to mounting drives with 5.25" to 3.5" brackets. Better airflow can be achieved with brackets but in this test the 4SA hot swap system was only about four degrees warmer than the bracket mounting system. As the hot swap method is easier for mounting hard drives most users will find the four degree penalty insignificant.

Hot Swap Mounting: A four drive hot swap RAID mounting stability test was the next item on my list of tasks to try with the Storage Tower "Hot Swap Setup". In this test, the four drive Maxtor 300GB SATA striped RAID set was dismounted and all four SATA hard drives were ejected and put back in the enclosure in a different order. Sometimes this was done with the enclosure power off while the RAID was dismounted, other times the power to the enclosure was left on. In all cases, the test was a hot swap removal of the RAID while the computer was left on. These tests were performed 20 times. The FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 host adapter was used for these tests. The RAID mounted in the Storage Tower without problems 100% of the time. It did not matter whether the enclosure was turned off or on while the SATA hard drive swap was performed.



Performance: The Addonics Storage Tower was tested using DiskTester with five Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives as a striped RAID set. The command: ./disktester run-area-test --transfer-size 131072 --iterations 3 --test-size 1024 --delta-percent 10 DriveName, was used to test how the RAID would perform when empty, 10% full 20% full and so on. You can see the results of the five drive 1.4TB striped RAID set in the DiskTester report below. The data shows that the performance of the RAID set write performance is over 332MB/sec when empty. Once the drive is 70% full the transfer rate drops to a write speed of 252MB/sec using this 1GB speed test.

Maxtor 300GB SATA Five Drive Striped RAID DiskTester Performace


The five drive striped RAID test above was done with the Storage Tower and two FirmTek host adapters. The SeriTek/1eVE4 was mounted in slot 4 and a SeriTek/1VE4 was mounted in slot 3 of an Apple PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 GHz. The four 300GB drives in the 4SA cage were mounted on the SeriTek/1eVE4 and the mobile rack utilized the SeriTek/1VE4 host adapter.



More Hot Swap Options: The Addonics Storage Towers 5.25" bays could be used with four Addonics SATA Mobile Racks (AENRHDSA35-R) $39.99 and several other 5.25" hot swap SATA enclosures. A hot swap drive cage that mounts three drives in two 5.25" bays is also available from Addonics. It is the Disk Array 3SA (AE3RCS35NSA) hot swap SATA enclosure which retails for $89.95. You can also mount four drives using the similar styled Addonics Disk Array 4SA (AE4RCS35NSA) for $111. Both the 4SA and the 3SA use the same hot swap trays which is convenient if you own both of these hot swap drive cage systems. Another interesting option is the Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B black five bay hot-swapable SATA enclosure ($113). The CSE-M35T-1B allows you to mount five SATA hard drives in three 5.25" bays. The drives are placed vertically in the cage and the fan is said to be loud. The fan looks like a Sanyo Denki Brushless DC Mini Ace 32, which is a 12v 92x92x25mm fan with a 30dBA noise rating. This may be good for server applications but installing a quieter fan may be a possibility for desktop usage. This drive cage is also available in beige. The activity lights on this enclosure will only work with certain PC host adapters. As such, the activity lights will not work when the CSE-M35T-1B is mounted in the Storage Tower and used with a Macintosh. Another five bay drive cage option is the Cremax MB810SKF 5in3 SATA RAID Cage ($139). This drive cage uses a backplane design, fits five 3.5" hard drives, while only taking up three 5.25" bays. It provides fan failure and overheat protection and has an 80mm cooling fan. This looks like it may be a very interesting hard drive mounting option when used with the Addonics Storage Tower. As you can see, using the Addonics Storage Tower with a PowerMac G4 or G5 with a SATA host adapter, opens up a whole new world of drive cages for the Macintosh user.

Discussion
The Addonics Storage Tower ST5ESA1US.is a 5.25" four bay construction kit that allows you to build just about any type of enclosure you might want and allows you to change your mind later and build a different enclosure setup. It allows you to utilize individual SATA hard drives, mobile racks, drive cages, 5.25" DVD burners and it can easily hold up to five SATA hard drives. If you ONLY need an SATA hot swap 3.5" enclosure, my favorite is still the dual drive FirmTek SeriTek/1EN2. It is small, quiet and requires no modification to work well with a PowerMac using an SATA host adapter. At a price of $169.95 each, two units (4 bays) will cost $339.90 plus shipping. This is a good value when compared to the Storage Tower in a similar configuration. However, if you want an enclosure that is aluminum, easily modifiable, that can utilize any type of SATA hard drive and even an IDE hard drive with an IDE-SATA adapter and mount a DVD burner and can accept all sorts of drive cages, fans, plus hot swap internal drive cages that are normally only available for a PC, then the Storage Tower is my first choice.

The advantage of an Addonics Storage Tower enclosure is the ability to modify the enclosure to fit your needs. If you don't like how the cooling works you can add or subtract fans. If you think it is too loud you can use quiet fans. If you want to use a full sized 5.25" DVD burner you can. The Addonics Storage Tower lets you be the four bay enclosure designer. Many other aluminum enclosures do not provide an easy way to alter them and they do not accept 5.25" devices or additional fans. If you would like to build a small four bay enclosure just the way you want it, the Storage Tower is worth a look. The Storage Tower gets a top AMUG rating because of its ability to be customized easily. If you are not going to modify the fans in this kit and plan to run it filled with drives they will get hot. The stock 40mm fan cannot cool four drives well and I would not recommend using the enclosure with more than two drives without adding an 80mm fan(s) as discussed in this article. The Storage Tower is an awesome tool for those that like to tinker with the enclosure and want to learn how to add new fans and hardware. Utilizing Hardware Monitor 3.1 you can view the temperatures of your hard drives and optimize the enclosures cooling capability with quiet fans. For those that desire an enclosure that can be easily customized the Addonics Storage Tower is a valuable resource.



Pros
Storage Tower ST5ESA1US is very flexible and highly customizable.
Internal 220W 110/220 power supply.
Quiet power supply fan.
Front and rear power switch.
Provides 5 external eSATA connections and one USIB port.
Provides 5 internal SATA connections and one IDE-USIB bus.
Side panels come off easily with a single thumb screw.
Provides four 5.25" drive bays and covers.
Can mount a 5.25" DVD burner.
Can mount up to four 5.25" mobile racks.
Allows you to utilize 5.25" internal drive cages.
Can be used with removable hot swap drive cages.
Supports hot swap when using a host adapter with that feature.
Can mount up to five internal SATA hard drives using 4-3 cage.
Allows you to utilize 5.25" drive bay accessories.
Storage Tower vented aluminum side panels help with cooling.
Internal four pin molex power connectors provide for expansion.
Great for users that want to create a custom enclosure.
Storage Tower top handle can be removed with four hex screws.
Addonics four bay Storage Tower ST5ESA1US is $149.

Cons
No hard drive activity lights.
Does not come with cables or 3.5" hard drive brackets.
No SATA power adapters included.
Original 40mm case fan is not quiet.
Not a good enclosure for users who do not want to customize it.


Storage Tower gets 5 AMUGs out of 5!
The Addonics Storage Tower is a very nice enclosure for those that want to customize the cooling and drive mounting capability of their enclosure. A "Basic Setup" of the model ST5ESA1US Storage Tower, as described in this article, provides a low cost solution for adding external eSATA storage capability with any PowerMac G4 or G5. The aluminum Addonics Storage Tower is one of the most flexible four bay enclosures I have used. Once you upgrade the enclosures cooling capability and select a drive mounting method that meets your needs, you can build a very nice external SATA storage solution using the Addonics Storage Tower ST5ESA1US.

Contact Information:
Addonics Technologies
22466 Kruse Drive,
San Jose, CA 95131
Phone: 408-433-3899
techinfo@addonics.com
http://www.addonics.com/

Copyright 2005
Arizona Macintosh Users Group, Inc. (AMUG)
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