Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this unit because it did hardware RAID5, had USB3, eSata, supported 4 drives, and was little. It accomplished every single one of those goals very nicely, but it's not perfect. I'll get to that in a second. I bought this unit to use as a backup volume for my machine. I had 2 1.5TB drives laying around, so I bought a 3rd to make a RAID5 Volume.
Setup was very easy - after mounting the pull fixtures to the drives, I slid them in, turned in on. I then held in the RAID button until it flashed, touched it again until it was on RAID5, then pressed the RAID confirmation button on the back, which is hidden behind a removable panel. I then hooked the drive up to the esata port, partitioned in, and formatted it.
Pros:
* Size. This is about 8" wide, 10" tall, and a 10" long. It's compact and easy to carry around.
* USB3 is fast - I haven't actually used USB3, but it is backwards compatible with USB2
* eSata is also fast. This is how I have it hooked up, and it works nicely in Ubuntu Linux without a hitch. Many people will tell you this unit needs a SATA card that supports port replication in order to function. I'm here to tell you they are wrong. Because of the hardware RAID support, the OS sees all the drives as a single volume, so no port replication is necessary. This is an epic win.
* Hot swap. If one of the drives die, just pull it out and replace it.
* Cooling. The fan on the back is a good nice, and the auto fan adjustment means that the drives shouldn't overheat.
* Cost. This is way cheaper than a ReadyNAS or a Drobo, but that is because some of the cons.
Cons:
* The power cord connection is on the side. Having it in the back would be really nice.
* There is no way to dynamically resize a volume. I have 3 drives in there now. If I want to add a forth drive, I need to recreate the RAID, losing all my data. This is a unit used for backup, so it's not the end of the world, but it would be nice.
* The pictures on Amazon aren't quite right. There are no dip switches anymore - the unit automatically configures itself when you setup the RAID.
* There is no way to get status on an individual drive, other than the lights on the front. If the unit is running degraded, there is no way to notify the OS, to notify me. This unit is in my basement, so I don't look at the lights very often.
* Speaking of lights, they are very, very bright. Not an issue for me, since it's in my basement, but if you plan on using this for a home theater application, it could be.Overall, I am quite pleased with this unit. Being able to have a RAID5 enclosure whilst only using a single eSata port, and not needing a port replicator compatible card is a big win.
The biggest issue is really trying to figure out what file system to put on it. I am definitely recommending this to my friends.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Mediasonic USB 3.0 & eSATA 3.5-Inch 4-Bay Raid Enclosure 0/1/3/5/10 HFR2-SU3S2
Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 Pro Raid Box is a 4 Bay Enclosure for 3.5" SATA I/II hard disk drive. The main feature of Pro Raid Box is its Hardware Embeded Raid function. It supports RAID 0/1/3/5/10. Support 3.5" SATA I/II hard disk drive up to 2000GB per drive, Hardware Raid controller built-in on board, Transfer rate up to 5.0Gbps via USB 3.0, Transfer rate up to 3.0Gbps via eSATA, Power Sync: Power off in synchronization with PC, One button for RAID control,Forced Convection Process, Smart Fan function.
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