PCEddie Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming, I will be looking for some deals on 2 and 3 TB hard drives to put into a external raid box. I have been looking around and would like to get people's opinion on the below items. The below items will be installed on a WHS 2011 box. Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 ProRaid 4 bay External Hard Drive Enclsure-USB 3 & eSATA Syba SD-SA2PEX-2E PCIe 2x e-SATA Ports wih SIL3132 Chipset Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 I have an old Mediasonic Pro eSATA box sitting idle downstairs. I stopped using it because, as far as I'm concerned, it ran too hot. It was also a bit on the noisy side. What I have now is 2 Lian-Li EX-503 exclosures. The drives run extremely cool and the whole enclosure makes almost no noise. The 503s also can hold 5 drives instead of just 4. They're more expensive than the Mediasonic, but I do not regret getting them even a little bit. I will never put the Mediasonic back into service. For an eSATA card I got this StarTech card: http://ca.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/2-Port-PCI-Express-eSATA-Controller-Card~PEXESATA2. It's a Silicon Image 3132 based card, which I think is the most important factor over the brand name. That's my 2 cents.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmwills Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 Can someone say Drobo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Miner Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 I don't know anything about the Mediasonic but I know Jim seemed to have pretty good luck with Drobo's including the Drobo S with WHS-2011 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006670&IsNodeId=1&Description=drobo&bop=And&CompareItemList=%2D1%7C22%2D240%2D010%5E22%2D240%2D010%2DTS%2C22%2D240%2D060%5E22%2D240%2D060%2DTS%2C22%2D240%2D090%5E22%2D240%2D090%2D05%23 and I expect they will be deeply discounted like everything else on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. At the meet-up Dave talked about how he really abused his Drobo and it kept performing very well for him -- which impressed me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmwills Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 I got an email the other day form Drobo about a new feature to be unveiled shortly. Wished I'd kept it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 The last 2 emails I got from Tom Buiocchi talk about the new Drobo 5N coming soon, and how it's a cousin to the just released 5D and Mini units. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImTheTypeOfGuy Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 I wish the 503's had a NIC. If they did I would have a couple of them as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 They would make pretty awesome NAS': small, quiet, cool, not bad looking either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImTheTypeOfGuy Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I wonder if a USB to ethernet adapter would work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I don't think an adapter would turn a 503 into a true NAS; I don't think it would be accessible over the network from regular Windows computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now