AMS Venus T4U 4 hard drive external enclosure ($90 shipped AR)

[mshan]

Got this enclosure at Frys earlier this year when it was over $100 AR.

Really nice enclosure with snappy interface.

No, it doesn't offer RAID, but it is a nice way to connect up multiple drives (up to 750 x 4) to a single USB port for up to 3 GB of quasi-NAS with something like the new Airport Extreme (indvidual drives could for formatted for Windows or Mac, too):

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5061155





(I got one with an earlier $30 rebate, so I am not sure if I quality for this one)

 

[idgaf13]

Been looking for a storage unit like that.

But for Serial ATA drives.

 

[mshan]

AMS offers a similar enclosure for SATA drives and has RAID, but it's not cheap: http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16817332013

 

[imported_Jackyl]

Originally posted by: mshan
AMS offers a similar enclosure for SATA drives and has RAID, but it's not cheap: http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16817332013

The problem with that AMS enclosure, is that it requires a specific RAID controller chipset to work with. The ones that Fry's have, includes the pci card in the box. This means you can't take the AMS to different computers and plug it in without that pci card. It does not have built-in hardware RAID.

I currently have the Sans Digital MS2UT with hardware RAID. But this damn thing has issues too. Sometimes when turning it on, one of the drives won't power up and "fails". I have to power cycle the unit. Then it will sometimes start rebuilding, and it takes two hours to rebuild 500GB RAID-1. Plus it has outdated COM port and some terrible monitoring software. Plus the tiny fans don't keep the drives cool.

Why doesn't anyone make a decent RAID-1 external enclosures with eSATA/USB and built-in hardware RAID? This is killing me! I've exhausted all options, and it looks like I need to build a seperate computer system to use as an "external enclosure".

 

[idgaf13]

These guys have alot of interesting products ,
I just cannot find them at my normal shopping venues.

Check the site and product specs.
Link