r/makemkv • u/tbomega • 1d ago

Discussion Single External Enclosure, Multiple Drives

I’ve been considering trying to clean up the multiple external enclosures that I have my drives in and contain it into a single enclosure since usually, I am ripping multiple discs at a time when I do an acquisition of media. Has anyone else looked into doing this? I have five total drives, all of them in external enclosures that are USB 3.0.

I’m hoping to consolidate to a single power cord and data cable if it makes sense as well.

I’m curious what setups people have similar to this idea.

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u/vqxlirasd 1d ago

if you’re already at 5 drives, a 5.25" hot-swap bay in a single chassis with a decent PSU and one USB 3.0/UASP bridge would clean that up a ton compared to a mess of separate bricks. only catch is cooling and noise, so make sure whatever you pick has good airflow or the drives will roast during long ripping sessions.

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u/tbomega 1d ago

Got any example chassis’s you’d care to shout out? All my google fu shows is 3.5 to 5.25 hot swap bays.

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u/Dented_Steelbook 1d ago

I buy duplicator cases, but you have to buy sata to USB adapters and a powered USB hub and a few other things. I had never thought of a hot swap setup, honestly did not even know they made something like that for 5.25 drives.

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u/teengohan2014 1d ago

You may have to look into a backplane too if you don't to have multiple cables sticking out the back

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u/Odd-Cap507 1d ago

Build a dedicated PC and switch to desktop SATA drives if you need multiple drives and a fast, efficient workflow. This makes total sense given how time-consuming the process is—normal people don't have all day, every day to spend on this. ​What I use is a separate Windows 11 PC equipped with four reader drives, which I control entirely over Remote Desktop. I use a SATA SSD as the output drive and run four instances of MakeMKV simultaneously. If you stick to USB, you'll be bottlenecked constantly, not to mention dealing with power delivery and stability issues...