Sun 911 External HD Case "How-To"


This is Sun 911 case, which will hold FOUR 3.5" SCSI hard drives. The case itself resembles a standard "lunchbox" chassis, although slightly taller.
The case is opened by first, removing the phillips screw inside the little black "anti-theft" device that you'll see just above the fan. Once that's off, tabs on either side of the case (closer to the rear) may be depressed, which releases in the internal latching mechanism, and the top half of the case will lift off from the bottom half.

Note that the rear of the case also diagrams the placement of the drives.
As you can see, the drives are arranged in a "2 by 2" pattern, with two levels of 2 drives next to one another. All drives face the same direction, with their SCSI and power connectors on the side with the power supply. The internal ribbon cable for the 4 drives lead out to the mini-50 connectors on the rear of the unit.
Obviously, with 4 drives stacked in this fashion, and cooled by a single fan, it is not recommended that you place into this unit 4 Cheeta drives at 10,000RPM, as they will run much too hot for the case. Cooler running 5400RPM drives are recommended. I've had good luck with the IBM SCSI drives, which run very cool and perform about as well as Quantum drives, but as with everything, your results will vary, and everyone has their own preference as to what works best.