Custom SSD Dock Build (Success! sorta)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I was able to paint today, although I was cutting it close with the humidity. The plywood with the painted dock and dust cover are now setting on top of mt washing machine for drying, which will take a couple of days or so.

Something interesting happened while I was laying on a coat of paint. I had my work table pulled under the carport awning in case it decided to rain. While I was spraying, a small hawk chasing a dove came in from behind me and flew under the table just inches from me. The dove landed a few feet away beside my trailer and the hawk flew up on top of my awning, apparently spooked by my presence. After a few minutes of waiting for me go away (which I didn't because I was still painting), it gave up and left.

The dove stayed on the ground while i was still outside but looked to be OK, so I left it alone and went inside. When I came back out, the dove was gone so it recovered and left, the hawk came back, or one of the neighborhood vermin (aka cats) got it. I wished the hawk had been much bigger so it could chow down on the neighborhood vermin.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Forgot to take a picture.

It was supposed to take only an hour to dry enough to handle but it's been almost two hours and it's still a wee bit tacky. I might be able to safely remove the tape this evening.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, it's been 24 hours and the paint still isn't fully dry yet. It's a good thin g I painted yesterday morning because the humidity is even worse this morning. Everything in my house feels damp even with the AC running. Oh well. I guess it's hurry up and wait. I did manage to slice the tape off the top last night, using the razor blade scraper, and touch up the unpainted edges with a paint pen.

[MurphCID]

Well, it's been 24 hours and the paint still isn't fully dry yet. It's a good thin g I painted yesterday morning because the humidity is even worse this morning. Everything in my house feels damp even with the AC running. Oh well. I guess it's hurry up and wait. I did manage to slice the tape off the top last night, using the razor blade scraper, and touch up the unpainted edges with a paint pen.

I would not have expected that your humidity would be as bad as that here. Sorry to hear that. But the project looks amazing.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, it's been 24 hours and the paint still isn't fully dry yet. It's a good thin g I painted yesterday morning because the humidity is even worse this morning. Everything in my house feels damp even with the AC running. Oh well. I guess it's hurry up and wait. I did manage to slice the tape off the top last night, using the razor blade scraper, and touch up the unpainted edges with a paint pen.

I would not have expected that your humidity would be as bad as that here. Sorry to hear that...

Normally, the humidity here is in the 20s or lower but, during our summer thunderstorm season, it can get up as high as the 80s. It hit 80% early this morning before the Sun reluctantly "snuck" out but it's now down to around 50% (it will start going up again mid-afternoon when a new crop of storms roll in). Also, we desert rats just aren't used to high humidity. I normally avoid projects that require painting at this time of year but I really want to get this dock up and running. That makes me really impatient!

...But the project looks amazing...

Thanks!

[rossdv8]

I've always enjoyed watching the way you build things on your DIY channel on TV

(I think it was called 'Mac' something or other . . .)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I've always enjoyed watching the way you build things on your DIY channel on TV

(I think it was called 'Mac' something or other . . .)

I just got up and it took me a minute or so to "get" it. Thanks (I think)!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The finish finally dried hard enough to let me apply a thin layer of furniture wax (silicone free Johnson's paste wax) with some 4/0 steel wool. The steel wool gets rid of any dust nibs that settled onto the paint while drying and the wax helps to protect the finish. After the wax dried, I buffed it out with a soft cloth.

I then installed all the screws except for the ones that hold the dock to its base. Before installing the base, I plugged in the connector stacks, then put a 1/16" thick aluminum spacer over the elbows that are plugged into the truncated enclosures forming the dock. This was to wedge the elbows between the enclosures and the base to ensure the elbows couldn't work their way loose.

Here, the base has been screwed onto the dock. I needed some anti-skid feet to help keep the dock from "scootching" around and to protect the top of the desk but they needed to be thin. Otherwise, the connectors wouldn't align with the ports on the Thunderbolt hub. I put a dab E6000 clear adhesive on each corner, let it set for a few minutes to skin over, then pressed the base down onto a sheet of silicone treated plastic to flatten the E6000. I then removed it from the plastic to let the E6000 finish drying. Crude but effective (not to mention cheap).

I had already plugged the dock into the Thunderbolt hub and started updating four backup drives before I thought to take a picture so here is how it looks with four backup drives plugged in.

Of course, I had to put some stickers on it. Sadly, there wasn't room to include baby Tux with the two I have on there, like I have on my laptops, without it looking too busy.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This shot was taken from above the dock showing how the connectors plug into the Thunderbolt hub.

The cable going into the back of the hub (at the top of the picture) is the power cable and the one on the right side of the hub is the Thunderbolt cable coming in from the laptop.

The dock doesn't need to be running all the time--only while updating backup drives--plus I need to either power down the hub or unplug and replug the Thunderbolt cable after removing drives in the dock before I can install the next batch. Unplugging and replugging the T-bolt cable is a wee bit awkward plus it puts additional wear and tear on the port. Unplugging the PSU power cable that plugs into the 120v power strip is a bit awkward and also raises a spark that could eventually destroy the outlet or plug so I got a switched single outlet cube tap to plug the plug into. I can easily reach the switch from my chair when sitting at my desk.

You can just barely see the switch on the left side of the cube tap. The only downside is the cube tap is a bit on the fat side. The plug for the laptop's PSU barely fits above the tap and the ground pin hole in the outlet below the tap is blocked by the tap so I now can only plug in two prong plugs into that outlet. Fortunately, I can still plug in three prong plugs into the bottom outlet. Hopefully, that will be all I'll ever need.

Plugging in and removing the drives is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. This is what the dock looks like with its dust cover in place after removing the drives.

I wanted to put a sticker on top of the dust cover to break up all that black a bit but it hasn't arrived in the mail yet.

The one test run I did to compare speeds when using all four ports on the right side of the computer and when using the dock appeared to be similar. I need to do more testing to get a better idea if the dock is going to be faster running of the one Thunderbolt port on the computer than when running one enclosure per port. However, even if it proves to be a bit slower, it will be considerably more convenient to load the dock instead of horsing around with individual enclosures and cables plus less desktop space will be needed and I'll still have three ports free on the computer to use for other tasks while a backup update is running.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This shot shows the enclosure clusters I currently have for backups.

The black ones are the backup drives for my laptop(s). If I ever get to travel again (stupid pandemics), I would have to remove them from the little bracket I made to hold them so I could shoehorn them into my laptop bag. Those enclosures are designed to be used with either USB cables or can be plugged into internal docks in a desktop computer that connect the drives in the enclosures directly via SATA. The downside of those enclosures is I need four SATA ports on a motherboard in a desktop computer for the four docks the enclosures would go into. I also have two dual docks that accept up to four bare drives for updating backups (the desktop backup drives are bare drives). To cut down on bulk and eliminate the dock redundancy on the future desktop computer, I'm going to remove the drives from the black enclosures so I can update them in the new SSD dock. I'll also be able to use the bare drive docks in the desktop computer when transferring data between it and the laptop (aka sneakernet). When on the road, I can take along two or more smaller enclosures to use like cables for updating the backup drives.

The gray enclosures are the future desktop's data drives I've been maintaining between desktop computers (I treat them like backup drives to keep them up to date). I'm also going to remove the drives from those enclosures so I can maintain them using the new SSD dock.

To store the bare drives after liberating them from their enclosures, I modified some single 2.5" drive transport cases made by Silicon Forensics. These cases are rugged. Silicon Forensics claims that drives in these cases can survive a 12' drop and being driven over by a pickup truck. I've never tested this but I doubt that they exaggerated much, if at all.

These shots show what each case looks like inside and out.

The recess in the foam in the right hand side of the case is designed to hold thicker 2.5" HDDs as well as thinner SSDs. However, I can easily put two SSDs in that recess. To make room for four SSDs, I removed the solid foam on the left side of the case and replaced it with another piece of foam cannibalized from another case. I've already done this a case in my laptop case that I keep four spare SSDs in (I removed the solid foam piece from the cannibalized case and use the case to hold USB cables and adapters).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is what the case looks like after the modification.

I made up two of these. I put the solid foam pieces into the cannibalized cases just to have a place to put them in case I ever want to make some kind of customized case for something or another. I should be able to make room for the two cases in a desk drawer where I can get to them quickly yet not be in the way.

I also need to buy some more cases since I used up my last four. That will have to keep until next month.

It's way past my bedtime so I'll wait until tomorrow...oops, I mean later today... or Tuesday to remove the drives from the enclosures. I may need to make and install labels on the drives themselves.

[rossdv8]

Watching this unfold from the beginning I am so thankful that
A) I'm too old to have to transport computer stuff to and from my yachts any more, and
B) ditto for my Camper, and
C) thank heavens for that 3D printer I never thought I'd find a use for.

It kind of made light work of a project that was similar to yours. Most of it was done while I slept
Of course I missed out on all the fun part like filing, drilling and hammering stuff . .

[MurphCID]

WOW, you just always amaze me with your technical ability!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

WOW, you just always amaze me with your technical ability!

Thanks, Murph!

My Daddy was a DIYer so I inherited the DIY gene from him. He also was a machinist by trade so I picked up a lot of tips from him. I minored in Industrial Arts Education back in college and worked in and around industry most of my working life. I also read a lot of how-to articles and watch a lot of TV shows and Youtube videos for new tips on how to do things.

Sadly, my Linux skills are less than stellar.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I removed the drives in the enclosure clusters today. The ones in the gray ones were quick and easy since those are tool free. I did have to make labels for one of the drives.

The ones in the black enclosures were PIMAA (Pain In MY Ample Asset). First, I have to use a #2/0 Philips screwdriver (PH00) to remove two tiny screws on the back, remove the back cover, slide out the circuit board the drive is screwed to, then remove the four screws holding the drive with a #1 Phillips screwdriver. Repeat three more times. I also had to make labels for one of these drives.

I now have external enclosures coming out my ears (ouch!).

I then loaded the drives into the transport cases I modified last night. I first made labels for the cases by printing them onto blank business cards and slipping them into the card pockets on the cases.

I need to replace my printer but no one has any.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Here are how the drives fit into each case.

Using the dock is going to a bit of adjustment in work flow. First, the computer doesn't even see the enclosures in the dock right away when first turning on the power to the dock. It takes a about a minute for the dock to show up. Second, sometimes, after hot plugging in the first drive, I have to wait for as much as a minute for the drive to show up. I found that, after safely removing the drives, unplugging them before shutting down the power to the dock let's them be found faster the next time I plug them in. I'll have to do some experimenting over time to see what works best.

Even though these problems are a bit inconvenient, not eating up most of what little empty space I have on my desk and tying up four ports for what sometimes can be as long as 24 hours is still well worth it.

I cleaned out the cables I'm not likely to use very often from one of my desk drawers and moved them into storage to make room for the transport cases and the external ODD that used to set on top of my printer. I did a little rearranging in my laptop bag, removing the hard case I used to use to hold the laptop's backup drive enclosures to make room for the backup drives' transport case. I also put a couple of the tool free enclosures in there and a couple of cables for them and still had a bit of room left.

On to cable management. During the initial testing, I had the Thunderbolt dock's PSU on top of the desk and cables strung wherever. I Velcroed the PSU to the side of my desk, just above the laptop's PSU. The cable running from the PSU to the Thunderbolt hub now runs along the wall behind the desk over clothes hooks I installed a few years ago to keep cables off the floor, then jumps to the hub. The Thunderbolt cable that came with the hub is two feet long, twice as long as it needs to be so I've ordered a one foot cable for that. I had some "fun" finding 4' precoiled 120v power cables for the T-bolt hub's PSU and the laptop's PSU but I found a place that had them (probably the only one on Earth) and ordered a pair. The laptop's PSU's power cord I coiled did hold it's shape very well so I want to try a precoiled one. The hubs power cord is just too darned short to let me pull the nightstand the future desktop computer (currently the QE2's anchor) and my scanners are on and in without having to unplug it first.

I probably won't do anything else major with the dock until Wednesday when I do my weekly updates of the desktop backup drives. I will run updates nightly on the laptop's Data 1 drive so I'll have time to experiment.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Today was the first day I had anything to backup and, even then, only two drives had new, changed, and/or deleted data that needed backing up so it wasn't much of a test but I went through the motions anyway.

I've had to make a change in workflow. Instead of turning on the power to the hub/dock first, wait for the enclosures in the dock to be found, then plugging in the SSDs in order one by one, which could take as much as two minutes or more by the time they would mount after first flipping the switch, I've found it's considerably faster to first load the drives into the dock, then turn on the power to the hub/dock. Tonight, it took only roughly ten seconds for all four drives to mount after flipping the switch.

Mounting the backup drives one at a time, both the old port and space consuming way and with the new dock, ensured that the drives would appear on the desktop and in the left hand panel in the drive windows in numerical order. Waiting to turn on the hub/dock until after I had loaded all the drives resulted in the drives being listed out of order. My OCD side rebels vehemently at that but my practical side tells me to build a bridge and get over it . Oh well, bridge under construction.

Also, loading all four drives into the hub/dock before flipping the switch on mounted the drives faster than when I had only two drives in the dock. Curious but that will not a problem most of the time.

Once updates are finished, I need to safely shut down the drives, then physically remove them from the dock before powering down the hub. Otherwise, they will take far longer to mount the next time.

The dock will get a far more rigorous workout after I swap out my onsite desktop backup drives with the offsite backup drives in my safe deposit box at my credit union after the first weekend of next month.

So far, I'm still happy with the dock.

[MurphCID]

Are you running any sort of RAID on this setup?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Are you running any sort of RAID on this setup?

Nope. This is primarily for updating my myriad of backup drives. It will sit out of the way with the power off just looking pretty on my desk until I need to update my backup drives. It may even be more time effective to use one of the separate enclosures I have coming out of my ears (and elsewhere ) if all that needs updating is one drive (if so, I may cut one down to make it into a cable, albeit a rather wide one). Time will tell.

Besides, I'm pretty sure the Thunderbolt hub wouldn't support RAID.

Edit: While RAID does have its uses, none of them are what I need. RAID 0 would make my drives faster but SSDs are so darned fast already, more speed wouldn't have enough advantage over what I have now to justify the increased chances of data loss. It would also complicate backups.

While it would be nice to always be assured my computer would continue to run and my data would continue to be available, even if a drive should die, backing up a RAID volume (yes, RAIDs have to be backed up) would be far more complicated than just dealing with individual drives like I do now. There also would be a loss of data volume available from the same number of drives.

With the backup scheme I have now, if my boot drive goes belly up, it will only take me a minute or two to swap in another one that already has my system installed on it; I could even do it when away from the house since all need is in my laptop bag. At most, it would be only a month behind and Timeshift wouldn't need long to bring it up to date. Rebuilding a RAID0 from a backup takes longer.

If a data drive should die, I can swap in a replacement in one or two minutes to five or so minutes minutes (depending on which drive it is), then tweak fstab in a minute or two. Again, everything I need to do this is in my laptop bag. Repopulating 2-7TB of data will take a while and would be best done overnight but I can always connect the backup of the drive with an enclosure (both of which would be in my laptop bag when away from the house) to the laptop temporarily if I need to access data not restored yet right then and there.

[rossdv8]

Sadly, my Linux skills are less than stellar.

Happily, you have a happy little Linux Family here lining up to help you reach for the Linux Sly . . .
What a wonderful community we live in . .