StarTech.com 4 Bay External Hard Drive Array Storage Tower – eSATA USB 2.0 Enclosure

My goal was to purchase a 4 drive USB enclosure that supported the latest 2TB drives. I have a bunch of these drives so I can test right away.My first attempt was the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4U-B 4 Bay SATA to USB 2.0 JBOD/Spanning Enclosure (Black):http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001LF40OU/ref=oss_productBased on the reviews you would think this would work well, and also based on the description "Supports the latest 2TB Hard Drive. Up to 8TB in storage capacity. (*Max. 2TB volume when in Spanning mode)." You would think it's the best choice. Think again. I owned 2 of these, one from newegg and one from Amazon. I got one from newegg tried it with a few 2TB drives, and it does NOT recognize them. I thought that maybe the newegg model was older so I contacted Sans Digital for support, they replied promptly asking me for the makes/serials of the drives that I used. I sent them high resolution pictures of the drives that don't work. No reply. I ordered another one from Amazon, thinking that it must support 2TB drives, because it says so in the description. Wrong again. Returning as we speak.So I popped the Sans Digital from newegg open to find the chipset that it's using. It was an IDE chipset and had the markings "D8927GC-002" on it. Strange, because this is a SATA box. I tracked the company that makes these to a Japanese company named Workbit. The chip is also called the USAT-3.Sans Digital Chipset Datasheets:[..]60Mhz whoopie! It's kind of old.Then, the Sans Digital uses an IDE to SATA bridge made by CFI. CFI no longer exists ([..]) and so I couldn't find any specs on that.This was not the storage box I was looking for, it had no chance of supporting the 2TB drives that I wanted. Right now I'm trying to return both of these.So I did some research on this StarTech model and their website clearly states what chipset they use. A sure sign that these guys are not hiding anything.Here is the datasheet:[..]I am very impressed with this model.Advantages over Sans Digital:* Properly supports 2TB drives.* Modern chipset.* Smaller form factor. Yes, this houses 4 drives but is significantly smaller that the Sans Digital model.* Better design. No comparison here from the finish on the outside to all the details inside, this is a FAR superior unit.* Drives have attachable handles for easy removal. These also provide padding and ensure a secure connection then the spring loaded front bracket is closed.* Has a metal bracket that ensures the drives are well secured in the unit, screw-less design here. The drive handles are however attached once using 2 screws, but once attached, drive can be swapped in and out very easily. Brilliant.* Front spring push-locked door. This is actually removable, if you need quick access to swap the drives often. Again, brilliant.* Detailed indicator lights on the front.* Can connect both esata and USB at the same time to 2 different computers. Swap between which computer will see the device with a push button on the front (I did not try this).* Silent fan, controlled by a thermistor (temperature sensor). Also can be put into manual mode.* Each drive has an activity indicator light. It's integrated in a very slick way with the front bezel.Cons:* There MUST be a drive in the TOP slot or else the USB will not connect. This is probably what one of the reviewers was experiencing.* Drive handles may be a problem if swapping drives often between different make enclosures. This is not the case for me, and you can actually not use them if you want to.Just to reiterate the above point, if there is no drive in the first TOP slot, the unit will not power on properly and will not be recognized by your computer.This seems like a great unit, they should be selling more of these.

Rating: Very Good.Pros: Small, compact unit. Holds 4 HDDs, runs quietly, fast data xfer via eSata cable.Cons: RMAd 1st unit - top drive slot did not work. Replacement sent Priority Overnight & working fine so far. Synch mode not designed to work well with HTPC application. 3 Power Off modes - pwr button only, 15 sec after computer off, or immediately after computer off. When HTPC put in sleep mode, this unit can be set to power off automatically but will not awake with computer. After waking computer, this unit will not stay on after pushing power button unless quick read of one of its hard drives is performed. Apparently, that is the only way it will "know" that computer is running after awake.I decided to keep this unit as it is very compact and reasonably priced. I am using it in "always on" state - all HDDs are available when HTPC awakes. Has automatic fan speed control so, except for front panel blue lights always on, does not have an annoying presence.

I purchased one of these through another vendor, along with 4 drives to use in a raid 10 array, plus a multiplexing sata card.After a lot of trial, error, and heartache, I came to the conclusion that Raid 10 (stripe+mirror) simply was not going to work. Neither did raid 5, nor would simple mirrors paired to JBOD. All of these on SATA.The problem was simple, constant corruption of data stored on the drive. We were trying to use this as additional storage for a video editing station; we constantly had video clips becoming corrupted during editing. I swapped drives with known good ones, and different brands. I purchased two additional cards for the unit, including a fairly pricy 'hardware' eSATA card (with it's own backup battery and cache memory). I used the raid cards to configure the drives, I used windows to configure the arrays as soft arrays. Nothing was reliable. I replaced the eSata cable twice. I even put a new UPS on the machine/drive. I spoke to startech and got very little real help but I think they were as confused as I was. They did at least try to help.I could not even get reliable operation by running the drives as individuals on the eSata chain.USB worked perfect but wasn't fast enough for my application. I ended up using it as a big offline backup drive and it works well for that. As others say, the lights are bright, the fan is quiet. The powersupply is a bit odd.

If you have a home theater pc (ie low wattage, 24/7 computer) this is exactly the storage solution you want.This is a very solid piece of equipment. The hard drive arrangement, fans, metal case all feel very well constructed. If you are connecting with USB2, this baby is literally plug and play.This enclosure is perfect if you just don't have enough external enclosures for all your hard drives. I leave this device connected to a server 24/7 and it is significantly cheaper than a 4 bay NAS or separate enclosures.There are only 2 downsides to this device:1. ESATA: if you don't have something called "port multiplier technology" on your computer, only one hard drive will show up when you are connected to the ESATA port. It seems like this is a deficiency on the computer and not the enclosure, but still, it's a downside.2. Be very careful when plugging in the usb cable to this device. It uses the larger square-like USB connector but since the enslosure's USB port is not as solid as the rest of the unit, it is possible to put this cable in upside-down if you are not paying attention. This will short out the device and USB won't work anymore. I think this happened to one of the other reviewers. It happened to me but I just sent this back to amazon and got another one the next day. No big deal; just something to be aware of.

I have two of the  StarTech 3.5 inch 4 Drive eSATA USB Multi Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure  (SAT3540U2E) and I can recommend them unreservedly - based on my experience. They are easy to set up, very quiet relative to most other equivalent units, and they have a compact footprint. They are also really excellent value for the money and contrary to what others say they are amazingly well constructed given the price.I use them through the eSata facility using a 4-port expansion card which of course is port-multiplier aware - necessary for these units. They do also of course work through USB but much more slowly.I have 4 x 2TB discs in one unit and 3 x 2TB + 1 x 1TB in the other. The first unit is used for Time machine backups and the second unit is a backup (a copy) of the first for security purposes. SuperDuper is used to keep the second unit up-to-date. This arrangement permitted me to dispense with my Drobo FS which in concept is a wonderful idea, but in reality, for anything other than basic small scale applications it is a nightmare. I am glad to get rid of it.For information, I supply the following to help others decide if the StarTech units will be compatible with their systems. I couldn't find this information anywhere on the web and neither SonnetTech support or StarTech support could give me a definitive answer prior to purchase.I have two of the the StarTech 3.5 inch 4 Drive eSATA USB Multi Bay External Hard Drive Enclosures (SAT3540U2E) and I have been using them successfully attached to a Mac Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 (MacOS 10.5.8) though a Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P expansion card. Both also work perfectly on my 17" MacBook Pro (MacOS 10.6.8) when connected via a Sonnet Tempo Sata ExpressCard/34. The chipset (EXAR - XRS10L240) on this StarTech unit is thus compatible with Sonnet's excellent although expensive expansion cards.For information, however, I also know, from experience, that the Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P expansion card does not work with arrays/units which use the PLX/Oxford - OXUFS936QSE chip set - which is used in the StarTech 3.5in 4 Drive eSATA USB FireWire External SATA RAID (S354UFER). I purchased one of these StarTech units in the past. The S354UFER does however work with the Sonnet Tempo Sata ExpressCard/34. Also for the record the S354UFER is an impressive performer with built in Raid. I can recommend the S354UFER without reservation. StarTech 3.5 inch 4 Drive eSATA USB Multi Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure

Un produit parfait pour mes supports numériques video et audio et photosFonctionne avec 4 disques de 1 TO sans problème

Actualmente lo tengo conectado un Mac Mini en el salón de casa, su nivel de ruido es aceptable y no molesta demasiado a la hora de ver películas. Su velocidad de transferencia es muy buena pero siempre y cuando se realice desde o hacia el ordenador, si se intenta copiar entre los discos duros o más de uno al mismo tiempo se satura. Además tampoco se puede leer en más de uno de los disco duro a la vez por el mismo motivo.Lo más molesto es sin duda la cantidad e intensidad de los LEDs, bastante molestos. Por lo demás cumple, pero con claras limitaciones.

La cabinita no esta mal, la relación calidad-precio en cuanto al hierro creo que es muy aceptable, pero menciona ser compatible con Linux y veo muy poco de esto.La conexión eSata, que es la que queria utilizar, no correo en 3 sistemas diferentes que he probado. He recurrido a soporte y no he obtenido mas que buenas palabras pero ningun hecho. Podria decir que no hay tal soporte.Si teneis esto en cuenta y aun os cuadra, pues adelante.

Déception pour ce produit médiocre :- il n'accepte pas une capacité supérieure à 1,5 To par disque (mentionné nullepart lors de l'acte d'achat, découvert écrit tout petit dans le mince manuel d'utilisation en anglais, et effectivement constaté, toute capacité supérieure est ignorée) ;- il ne "voit" pas et ne lit donc pas des données écrites auparavant sur un disque sata extérieurement par un autre dispositif ou l'ordi lui-même ;- et réciproquement : les données qu'on y écrit sur un disque ne sont pas lisibles si insertion de ce disque dans un autre dispositif.Bref, le format d'écriture semble propriétaire et non compatible avec les autres moyens de connexion d'un disque sata.Dans ces conditions, je ne confierai pas la sauvegarde de mes données à un système qui lui-seul sait les relire ; s'il subit une défaillance plus tard, tout est perdu !Aucune utilité donc pour moi de ce système approximatif.