External hot-swappable hard-drive enclosure

[T-Shirt Ninja]

So I'm working w/ a friend of mine to build him a hard-drive enclosure for 5 or 6 harddrives. He'd like it to be hot-swappable, and it needs to work w/ a Mac. We have the ability to build the physical enclosure, but I don't really have much experience w/ how to deal w/ the hardware side of things.
What would I use to connect the harddrives together/to the comp, how would I provide power for them, things like that. I've been looking for a guide to doing it, but I haven't really found anything useful.
Thanks!

[TheEnigmaBlade]

Here's how to do it.

[agent smith]

by simple googling in the web i found this  these should be what are you aiming for
http://www.terracode.com/SATA_Array/SATA_Array_Project.html
it uses a multilane link(i dont know wtf is that) for pc to array and its contains sata ports
anyways the drive cases you can found in the market, contains other features, like e-sata, usb, firewire and ethernet, ports but the prices are over the $100 us dollar

[T-Shirt Ninja]

Thanks agent smith, that would be exactly what I need if i was doing this for a windows or linux computer. however, the problem is that this is going to be for a mac, which doesn't have the requisite pci slots. I think i found a work-around solution that won't be as fast or elegant, but it will work. However, I'm going to keep this on file if I ever need to do a proper job of it w/ an actual computer

[agent smith]

ok when you finished, can you post the result?,
however discussing w zapatista we found the idea that you can build an storage server if you don`t think already on it, w and mini itx mobo and a power supply, and you can access your data trough ethernet, unfortunately there is no way to connect it by firewire or usb, but you will gain another capabilities having a complete pc system. and the array makers are close to sell his controller cards individually, they will sell you the enclosure and the controller in one unit

[T-Shirt Ninja]

Yeah, making a storage server was another thing i suggested to my friend who i'm building this thing for, but he wants to keep it as low cost as possible. We're going to be doing a small test of what i'm planning in the next couple of days, so then i'll know if it will work, and if it doesn't, then i can probably convince him to go with a storage server.
Basically, i'm going to use sata-to-usb converters (i found some very small SATA 1 to USB 2.0 converters at newegg), then put the USB plugs into a USB hub, so there'll only be one cable running from the enclosure to the computer. And i'll need to get a small power supply to power the drives. That's basically the plan, but we're going to test if it actually works correctly very soon, when we get one of the converters. If things work out well, then we'll start building the whole thing, and I'll post updates on how that's going, w/ pictures.