FANTEC QB-X8US3 External Case for 3,5" hard drives, USB 3.0 6G

I wanted a relatively simple hard drive enclosure to support multiple hard drives. A friend suggested that rather than getting something with multiple individual drives I should look more seriously at a RAID device. After hunting around the net and finding a massive selection of different units all offering the earth and stars I finally paid some attention to the buyer reviews. The fantec on average came out on top with more satisfied purchasers and so I bought one.At first I admit I had zero clue what the heck I was doing with this thing. But after poring through the user manual half a dozen times to familiarise myself with the thing I went off and bought a few drives to throw in. It's not tool-less like some other units, but it's just a small plastic handle that makes removing the drive more simple and safer, and it is a matter of using the provided screws and driver to attach two screws per drive so the handle is secured. Not really a big deal and nothing to moan about in my opinion.Power up is quick, and the initial hunt of the drives mounted is pretty fast. I think the default setting for this is Raid50 which expects to find a full box and so immediately throws an error. That caught me by surprise and I had to dive back into the user manual before I figured out that you have to hold the RAID select button for a few seconds, select the RAID function that matches the number of drives you have mounted and then hold the little black button in the too small for my fingers box at the back of the unit until the thing shuts down. Then power up again and hey presto the RAID is set, and the thing works like a dream. Data transfer is more than adequate for large block files and small files transfer nice and smoothly. It's surprisingly quiet, much more so than I expected. The Orico unit I have hums away quite busily by comparison. The light array across the top of the case is less intrusive than the Orico, and not so sharp that it burns afterglow into your retina when glancing at the unit.My only complaint is that the thing powers down into hibernation very quickly if it's not busy doing something. As it takes a little while (around 10 seconds on average) to spin back up again this can be a tad annoying, but not so much that the earth is going to end because of it. The advantage of the RAID array system, and the fact that I can access large drive storage offsets that small annoyance considerably. Well, for me anyway, I have no doubt there are people out there tearing their hair out over it.As far as I can tell, the build quality is good. The case is fairly strong and rigid, and feels solid when manhandling it. The empty case is quite heavy, but once it's packed with drives there's a considerable amount of weight there, so the unit needs to be stood on something stable and strong enough to support it. Power and other buttons are responsive and the feedback click is sufficient. The drive enclosures are simple and have a little space in them, so drive movement is possible if you are rough with the unit when moving it. Some care may be needed to prevent damage or data loss. The power cable and USB/SATA cable sit in sockets at the rear of the box and seat fairly firmly with very little play. However, moving the unit when it is on, could knock one of these connectors loose resulting in loss of data, I wouldn't recommend trying to move this thing while it is on, especially not if you've filled all the bays.Any changes to the RAID array will result in data loss as far as I can tell. So make sure you have this set up how you want it and with the drives you want in there before using it for data you want to keep. Also, empty blank drives only. DO NOT put any drives in this unit that already have data on them. You will lose it.For what it's worth, as a completely new person to RAID and mass storage like this, I had everything up and running within 30 minutes, including reading the user manual. Setting up the drives in Windows took about 20 minutes. So in less than an hour I had this up and running and working sweet as a nut. Can't complain about that. So far, this is worth the money I spent and I am more than happy with this purchase.

I love this, Works with both Linux and Windows, has its own motherboard and transfers data fast and reliably. I personally have 2 drives in JBOD 12TB on each drive. 1. Linux and the other Windows There are different raid and Jbod options allowing you great flexability. It does take a little while to shut down but all in all a great little box.