need advive - external RAID enclosure

[dv416]

http://www.amazon.com/Sans-Digital-...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1283936806&sr=1-1


what do you guys think? its got usb 3.0 and esata. i run a mac, which this also supposedly supports. its between this, and a bunch of 1.5tb or 2tb drives, or buying a few 2-4 TB graids over the next few years. ideally this is a purchase that can stay useful over my next computer upgrade which may happen in a year or so.

 

[Noel Evans]

Mac doesnt have USB 3.0, but esata should be better.

Overall Id say it would give decent performance with a big fat caveat. Esata cards can vary a lot in performance. Theres a reason some are low price and some are high. Usually high = much better performance.

Id see if you can find some real world reviews from people using it where you can see the real world speeds they are getting.

 

[David Saraceno]

Some people like the SansDigital enclosures, but my subjective view is that they seem a little flimsy to me.

Take a look at this one:

http://thurly.net/0083

 

[photonashville]

I always say go with OWC (macsales.com), MacGurus, Granite Digital, Sonnet Tech. Those are brands I trust. If price is the main factor, then "roll your own". Buy drives from Tiger Direct, 2TB Hitachi 7200rpm drives are $119 each and get an enclosure to hold two or more drives, use disk utility to mirror raid and find a decent sata card with 2 ports at least, OWC sells some for as little as $49.

Also anyone on Mac should have a drive dock for so many reasons: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock

 

[David Saraceno]

OWC sells a couple of driverless PCIe SATA boards, one at $49.00 and the other, a port multiplier board for $79.00. Both are 64-bit compatible.

 

[dv416]

wow. thanks for the input. never shopped at OWC. looks great. that product looks great too. seems like a no hassle, minimum risk, great service option.

just bought the 4tb version.
thanks again!