Esata/USB3.0/Firewire storage capable of holding more than one disk?? not NAS.

[smakme7757]

Hi all,

At the moment i have about 8 external drives full of data. I'd like to consolidate all of them into a single unit, but i don't want it to be NAS and want USB 3.0/Firewire support/Esata support. The storage will also not have any Internet connectivity (Before plugged in i will disable all network traffic via my firewall).

I've had a look at a Drobo S which seem like an awesome unit, but was wondering if anyone knows of something else which might be a little cheaper?

Jack.

 

[corkyg]

What total capacity do you need? Cheaper will probably only come with fewer interface requirements. Example, if you have eSATA, and it is one device, why USB 3 or Firewire?

 

[JWatson]

I bought several 4-bay external eSATA and USB 2.0 from Media Sonic, and they've worked wonderfully. They were only 120 each when I bought them, and I paired it with a cheap external 2 port esata card from monoprice. They worked great! I highly recommend it if your just need a JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disk) to be hooked up.

They have newer USB 3.0/eSATA MediaSonic enclosures that replaced the USB 2.0, but they should just be as good. At $140, I think these are a decent buy.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817576009

You can get the eSATA card here for really cheap $15 USD
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=3581&seq=1&format=2

One note about the media sonic bays is that the power cable is a little weird, it had a right angle plug, and the enclosure's eSATA port can be a little loose at time so it's best not to bump the enclosure when you have it on or it might be disconnected. These are minor complaints, but they're good to know.

 

[Zap]

At the moment i have about 8 external drives full of data. I'd like to consolidate all of them into a single unit

What are the capacities of your existing drives? If they are pretty small capacity, you can probably just get a 3TB external, copy data over and call it a day.