What Do You Think of This External Raid Box and e-SATA Card

[PCEddie]

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

[ikon]

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....

[jmwills]

Can someone say Drobo?

[Joe_Miner]

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.

[jmwills]

I got an email the other day form Drobo about a new feature to be unveiled shortly. Wished I'd kept it now.

[ikon]

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.

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

I wish the 503's had a NIC. If they did I would have a couple of them as well.

[ikon]

They would make pretty awesome NAS': small, quiet, cool, not bad looking either.

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

I wonder if a USB to ethernet adapter would work?

[ikon]

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.