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external 2 bay raid enclosure recommendations

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mgilhespy
(@mgilhespy)
Posts: 102
Estimable Member
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For putting together an analyst's flightcase, I am looking for recommendations for a (relatively cheap) external 2 bay raid enclosure to fit 2.5 inch disks. There are several on the market, I've been looking at this one from Syba for instance which fits my basic requirements

http//www.amazon.com/Syba-Dual-2-5-Inch-Enclosure-SY-ENC25024/dp/B0081II3FW

However if the forum members have specific recommendations I would really appreciate hearing them.

many thanks

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 12:09 am
jaclaz
(@jaclaz)
Posts: 5133
Illustrious Member
 

Personally I would be terrified to have an external, directly accessible hardware switch NOR/RAID0/RAID1 😯 , I guess that removing the switch/soldering contacts in the desired mode should be needed.

IF (to be verified) there is enough USB power on the bus of the PC to be connected/low power devices are put in the case, I would prefer (for an on-the-move setup) an enclosure that needs not a power adapter.

Something more like this one (which is not a recommendation BTW)
http//www.cineraid.com/products/home_h212.htm

jaclaz

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 12:58 am
mgilhespy
(@mgilhespy)
Posts: 102
Estimable Member
Topic starter
 

Personally I would be terrified to have an external, directly accessible hardware switch NOR/RAID0/RAID1 😯 , I guess that removing the switch/soldering contacts in the desired mode should be needed.

IF (to be verified) there is enough USB power on the bus of the PC to be connected/low power devices are put in the case, I would prefer (for an on-the-move setup) an enclosure that needs not a power adapter.

Something more like this one (which is not a recommendation BTW)
http//www.cineraid.com/products/home_h212.htm

jaclaz

yeah the external switch is indeed odd. Thanks for the non-recommendation, I hadn't seen that one before - I see the switch is nicely hidden inside the case.

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 1:03 pm
(@francesco)
Posts: 79
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I've been looking at this one from Syba for instance which fits my basic requirements

http//www.amazon.com/Syba-Dual-2-5-Inch-Enclosure-SY-ENC25024/dp/B0081II3FW

Are you sure you looked well? Those reviews are true nightmare material. 😯

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 3:19 pm
jaclaz
(@jaclaz)
Posts: 5133
Illustrious Member
 

The other issue I can see in these kind of thingies is the buildup of heat.
Probably that might be fine if SSD's are used (rather costly), but on conventional rotating hard disks it is something that should be considered.

I am notoriously cheap 😯 , but since ultimately we are talking of "data integrity" here, I would go for something more costly (and more cumbersome to transport) with some airflow around the disks/heat dissipation, still as non-recommendations wink
http//www.amazon.com/Taurus-Mini-Super-enclosure-only/dp/B00GRHY7UE/ref=sr_1_25?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1415961994&sr=1-25&keywords=dual+RAID+enclosure
http//www.raidon.com.tw/RAIDON2013/RAIDON2014/gr2660-b3.html

I can understand the "need for portability", but my gut feeling is that it is the overall design that is "flawed", you simply cannot stack to 2.5" drives one over the other with no fan and expect them to not heat up a lot.

This kind of "wide/flat" design (again examples)
http//www.acard.com/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=455&prod_no=ARS-2212&type1_idno=9&ino=122
http//www.datawatchtech.com/product.asp?id=75&a=1&secid=265#.VGXp8DSG_iw

seems to me a bit smarter (and I would probably drill anyway any number of holes on the case)

Now (this time as a recommendation, not about the specific product, which may NOT be what you are looking for, but as a recommendation for the firm, that always provided me with good hardware) I would think about this
http//www.addonics.com/products/cpr5sa.php

jaclaz

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 4:45 pm
mgilhespy
(@mgilhespy)
Posts: 102
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Topic starter
 

Are you sure you looked well? Those reviews are true nightmare material. 😯

well that is why I mentioned basic requirements. That example was only posted as an idea of what I'm looking for. Perhaps I should have said "meets bare minimum requirements"!

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 5:37 pm
mgilhespy
(@mgilhespy)
Posts: 102
Estimable Member
Topic starter
 

The other issue I can see in these kind of thingies is the buildup of heat…
jaclaz

Thanks for your feedback and the recommendation! I am concerned about the heat issue and the alternative layout options you provide links to are interesting. I'm really struggling with keeping overall size and weight down to specified amounts, but I have also had good experience with addonics products before, so perhaps I'll try to squeeze elsewhere.

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 5:47 pm
(@francesco)
Posts: 79
Trusted Member
 

well that is why I mentioned basic requirements. That example was only posted as an idea of what I'm looking for. Perhaps I should have said "meets bare minimum requirements"!

Well you also said you were looking at that one, and from the reviews it sounds terrifying. I've always had bad luck with 2.5 enclosures and sometimes even with plain external 2.5 hard drives that sometimes work perfectly on one computer while having all sort of weird clicking/beeping issues on others. What are you going to use the box for?

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 6:14 pm
(@mscotgrove)
Posts: 938
Prominent Member
 

A few years ago disk drives got 'quite' hot, and cooling was a very important issue. There were some very bad 2 x 3.5" drive cases.

Most current drives actually now run quite cool. Cooling such not be ignored, but there may solutions where cooling can be quite relaxed.

Reading the smart on the drive will give the internal temperature - needs to be tested when doing continuous writing.

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 6:33 pm
mgilhespy
(@mgilhespy)
Posts: 102
Estimable Member
Topic starter
 

What are you going to use the box for?

to provide for a highly portable (and cheap) way to
(mostly) read
pairs of 2.5 inch hard drives (including SSDs) configured in
(mostly) raid0

outside of the environment of the laptop that they were originally installed in.

note
perhap's I should also add that this is in the very early stages of planning. a critical factor in final selection will be compatibility between the raid controller used in the flyaway kit and that present in the install-base, but for now I'm just looking for examples which fit the ultra-portable criterion, from which I can then do further rounds of selection.

 
Posted : 14/11/2014 6:47 pm
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