Looking for a 4-bay NAS or external enclosure for old HDDs

[It's Not Lupus]

I'm looking for recommendations for a 4-bay NAS or external enclosure to put my old Samsung F1 and F3 1TB hard drives. This isn't for any important data, and I'm not looking to spend a lot. I need at least JBOD support.

I get the impression that some NAS units might be picky with the model of the drive.

I was thinking about an external enclosure like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817576009
but that involves pairing it with another PC.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I, too, am interested in this very topic. I had been converting IDE->USB2 external drive boxes to eSATA. I want to use a single port on my PCI-E SATA-3 controller, to connect with a port-multiplier in a NAS enclosure with its own power-supply and switch. The port-multiplier should allow for an addition of four drives or a net increase of three.

There is an outfit which should be pretty commonly known to enthusiasts:

www.addonics.com

or "Addonics." They offer controllers, port-multipliers, NAS enclosures with power supply. They've "been around" since the late 1990s.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Do you need JBOD support as DAS, or do you need a NAS?

A 4-bay NAS is easy enough. Get a Synology.

If you just need JBOD direct attached storage, get this:

http://www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1357290977

 

[wasabiman123]

If you want to plop down some $$ on a good 4 bay NAS for general purpose storage, and media stuff (no transcoding though), I can wholeheartedly recommend the Synology DS 414, it's been great to me so far. about 450$ on Amazon.
For your immediate purposes though, an external enclosure makes the most sense.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Do you need JBOD support as DAS, or do you need a NAS?

A 4-bay NAS is easy enough. Get a Synology.

If you just need JBOD direct attached storage, get this:

http://www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1357290977

I had come across this MediaSonic option before, and took a closer look at it.

I can only guess that the OP's needs are similar to mine. I want an external eSATA-connected box with its own power-supply that can be configured as a secondary drive-pool to my WHS-2011 server with the currently-installed Stablebit DrivePool software. I had been assured by their tech-support that such a drive pool can be mounted and dismounted from the server at will -- manually.

The MediaSonic box requires port-multiplier feature of a controller in the computer feeding the eSATA connection. The port-multiplier must deploy FIS-switching. The SATA-III controllers in my server fill the bill for that.

On the other hand, there have been reports of mixed results with use of port-multiplier.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

On the other hand, there have been reports of mixed results with use of port-multiplier.

If nothing else, SATA port multipliers will bottleneck your performance.