# External eSATA enclosure that turns on by itself



## ralphbsz (Dec 17, 2013)

I have a strange question --- it is not strictly FreeBSD related.  I'm looking for an external disk enclosure for a single 3.5" disk with an eSATA connection.  The difficult part is: It has to come on by itself when power is applied!  All the ones I have found so far require a human to press a button to turn on after getting power.

Here's the background (with all the details).  I have a wonderful FreeBSD server in the basement, which does all the "IT" type stuff for our household (network router, NAT, wireless AP, DNS and DHCP server, some monitoring and automation, web server, and most importantly the file server).  Because the data on it is important, I do frequent backups, to an external disk drive (plus I use internal RAID and do off-site backups, but that's not relevant to this question).  The external disk is connected via eSATA; I used to have a USB disk, but the USB stack was not reliable enough for unattended 24x7 operation (I was getting kernel crashes and file system dropouts every few days, probably caused by flaky USB hardware).  The eSATA setup has been rock-solid.  Right now I have a MacAlly disk enclosure, which has a lovely button with a blue LED on the front.  And you have to press the blue button to turn the enclosure on; it will not come on by itself when power is applied, nor can it be configured to do so.

Furthermore, the server has its own UPS (which it even controls and monitors), and all the accessories (like the DSL modem, the Ethernet hub, and most importantly the external backup disk) are connected to the UPS.  Unfortunately, since we live in a rural mountainous area, the power does go out in the winter every few days, but with a UPS that's no problem: if the outage is less than ten minutes, nothing happens.  And if it is longer, the server shuts down, and when power comes back on, it restarts cleanly.

The last straw: the server happens to be installed in a utility room, right next to a great big safe, with fire-insulated walls.  The safe has a small hole for electrical wires, and you can guess where the external backup disk is located: In the safe, right next to a folder with vital documents: both so the backup data is protected against a small house fire or casual burglars, and so in case we need to evacuate the house, we can quickly grab passports, birth certificates, and the backup data.

You can already see where this story goes bad: the power goes out (it does occasionally), the power comes back on, and the backup disk stays off.  A few minutes later I get an e-mail from my server, telling me that backup isn't running, and that one file system is missing.  I have looked for other disk enclosures, and so far not found any that have no power switch, or have a simple on/off toggle switch, or that can be configured to come on by themselves.  Anyone ever seen an enclosure that would do the job?

No I'm not about to build a little robotic gadget that uses a solenoid to push the on-button remotely.  That's just too silly.  The only other solutions I see is to live with it, or to move the backup disk to be inside the server (perhaps in a removable tray).


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## wblock@ (Dec 17, 2013)

I have not used 3.5-inch eSATA enclosures, but have a 2.5-inch USB/eSATA that stays on.  There are a couple of approaches that range in elegance from terrible to hacky.

First, what happens if the soft-start power button is just held down?  If It comes on and stays on, the inelegant approach would be to jam the button down, either mechanically or electrically.  Slightly more elegant would be having the server close a relay connected in parallel with the switch.  There are bound to be ways to do that, but none that are really common.  Some kind of USB device would be fairly nice, and using one of the keyboard LEDs fairly ugly.

Another inelegant approach would be to run DC power and SATA cables from the server direct to the drive in the enclosure, bypassing the enclosure electronics and power supply entirely.

Brute force would be to just replace the enclosure with one that is less smart, an always-on power supply and a SATA to eSATA connector adapter is all that is really needed.


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## ralphbsz (Dec 17, 2013)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> ...  but have a 2.5-inch USB/eSATA that stays on.  …


What brand or model?  If I knew, I might try the 3.5" from the same manufacturer.  That's the cleanest solution.

Your other suggestions all range from sensible to amusing (using the keyboard LED and a relay is brilliant, in a nutty professor kind of way).



> Brute force would be to just replace the enclosure with one that is less smart, an always-on power supply and a SATA to eSATA connector adapter is all that is really needed.



That sounds like the most sensible : Just pull the DC power from the server (route one of the disk power connectors outside and make a 6' long SATA power extension cord).  That's only an hour of work and a few dollars of components.  I think it's a nice Christmas vacation project for my school age kid to solder up for me.  Thanks for the idea!


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## wblock@ (Dec 17, 2013)

This is a Rosewill (Newegg house brand) enclosure.  They have dozens, it's doubtful that they are all this way.  But actually, it surprises me that a simple enclosure has soft-on.  That would be more expected on something with more brains, like an enclosure with Ethernet.


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