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Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed?
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199 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
I bought one of these to consolidate drives into a single enclosure:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_9jgpDbERCY0PX
They sell 8 drive versions as well.
It's a bit on the expensive side, but it was worth it for me because of the space savings, fewer USB drives, less cable mess, and plug points.
It really depends on what you want to store, how much and the amount of money you want to spend
I have one of these https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_R658KKQKC6W9BHWE0247?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
With four 8tb drives, so two sets s of redundant drives. One set holds my data: source code, books, others. The other set is my music, tv shows and movies.
I have one other set of two drives with my photos and videos.
All of this is backed up using Crash Plan.
I also have another set of drives that are backed up and placed into a fireproof safe.
Your needs, obviously, will be different. I added on as I needed, and it's easy to use Windows included drive dup Storage Spaces
I bought 1 already but want another. I'm new to this, so after shucking where can I place them? My only computer is a laptop so my options are either building my own server or finding a dock that can support multiple 8TB drives, preferably 4 ports. Can someone gimme an amazon link for something to look at?
I was thinking this https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1503137746&sr=8-3&keywords=4+bay+8tb
But won't that not support plex transcoding?
Sure. There's plenty of disk bays that connect to the PC via USB 3 or esata. I have a Drobo, which has served me well, but my next purchase will likely be something cheaper than that. I've been running it nearly 24/7 since I bought it 4 years ago (there was a month or two when my PC was off, so the drobo was in sleep mode).
There's a wide range of things like that available. Just search 5 Bay enclosure or 5 hdd Bay on Amazon (I'm on my phone or else I'd link you).
Edit: Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5" SATA HDD Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_E62LybZ817YQM
That's a 4 bay drive for 99 dollars. But just FYI, I don't know much about what hardware is good or reliable for USB drives (or Nas for that matter). It's something I plan to figure out or ask about when I get the money to buy a new enclosure or Nas.
And it should be noted that while I've had a good experience with Drobo (it's super easy to use, you can swap out drives for larger ones when you need to, and it can protect against one or two simultaneous drive failures), they use a proprietary RAID. That means if your drobo enclosure dies, you'll need to get it fixed, or replace it with another Drobo before you can recover the data on your hdds. I've read thaf migrating from one drobo to another is easy, and you don't need to know which order your drives are in or anything like that.
If you're very tight on budget, consider not doing a complicated NAS setup for now. Get an 8 TB Easystore or whatever you can afford, and keep it as an external to back up your files.
Later, evaluate your actual storage needs to see what you'll actually need in the medium term and start saving up. Maybe you need a huge Raid setup. Maybe you only need something like the Mediasonic that just holds a few drives with zero bells and whistles.
Either way, if this isn't time sensitive, this sub absolutely explodes every time there's a big sale on Easystores, so maybe wait for that?
Ok so I think your going about this the wrong way.
I’m try to keep it as simple as possible.
Most people use a NAS along with a Plex server because a NAS just can’t do it on its own. They don’t have the proper hardware to perform as good as a computer. You will not be happy!
If you want simple the I would buy a Nvidia Shield and set it up at your server.
I would also buy an external storage device for your hard drives. You can use a nas but you can also use something like this.
The shield might be a little intimidating to you when you set it up but trust me it’s your best plug and play solution available.
Do you have an e-sata port? You could get an external enclosure to add more drives such as this: http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441144591&sr=8-1&keywords=4+bay+esata&pebp=1441144597849&perid=15VC0A56TTH1D5MNPRBN (I'm not recommending this certain product, just an example).
I've been using this 4 bay Mediasonic on and off since 2015. I used to use it for doing bulk disk copies and backups, but it's been my Plex storage for the last year with no issues.
I was really iffy on the NUC as a Plex server just because of the USB storage, but after running it on USB on my old server I was comfortable downsizing to the NUC and it's really been great.
I connected my NUC to this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_search\_asin\_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's no longer available, but others can provide suggestions.
I ran Windows 10 using StableBit DrivePool letting me create a single "drive" using 4 x 6TB disks. I had Folder Replication enabled, so I could lose one drive without fear of losing files.
And since it was Windows 10, creating Shares was a snap.
THere are Linux alternataives, but I will defer that to the experts.
I haven't tried multiple enclosures or additional USB storage devices.
It's a Mediasonic 4-bay USB drive enclosure. (old Amazon link)
I passed through the USB 3.1 host controller in Proxmox to the VM, and now the VM sees 4 separate drives which DrivePool pools as a single volume (with optional folder duplication.)
Mediasonic has newer models, and I'm sure other options would work well.
I am using something like this (different brand but same OEM).
It can make the whole thing more tidy, Synology will recognize 4 USB drives separately.
I bought mine in Japan, but this should be the same OEM in US Amazon (even the accessories & tray are same), the eSATA of course can't be used by Synology since only 1 disk can be detected.
Personally I am using one of the similar thing (see below) to connect multiple drives, which is nice and don't need that many plugs around, but I am not sure if you want to disassemble your WD HDD to put inside.
RAID only provides you availability, if you want to save your data RSYNC backup is better.
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I actually have one of this clone (different brand name in my country but same OEM since it looks same) and works pretty well, $139 isn't too expensive, you can even put more disks for other tasks.
USB hub works, but if you have multiple disks, why not looking at something like this? I have one at home and NAS is able to see 4 HDDs.
So you can e.g. 1 for BT download, 1 or 2 for backup.
Thank you. This is the type of product I am looking for. I don't why I couldn't find some thing like this before. Some of the reviews of the ORICO on Amazon were not good. I did find this however. If I couple that with two 4TB WD HDDs, I could have a real nice setup. I wouldn't have to get rid of the externals right away and I could add two additional drives later.
Get something like this, basically just a USB drive enclosure with four bays.
I want my HDDs to stay off PC case.
Are multi-HDD enclosures any good?
Speed doesnt matter much, I am happy with the speed that external HDDs give. Concerns are vibration, temperatures, fan noise, hdd connectors, dust protection, so it can stay on the floor
You can add many hard drives internally in pretty much any desktop PC. Unless you're just using a laptop. If you only need to replace your external every few years, you won't gain a whole lot from a NAS. Most NAS are not that scalable, one disk at a time. Synology is about the only one off the shelf that will allow you to add one disk at a time, and it still has restrictions.
You can build your own and use something like UnRAID which will allow easy addition of disks as you please, but still requires its own PC case, motherboard, etc.
Maybe what you want is just a DAS. A simple 4 bay USB device like a Mediasonic: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
You will have access to each disk individually, but you can throw in another drive as desired.
The main advantage of a NAS is centralized access over a network. But another big advantage is running in a RAID configuration which helps with performance, but more importantly allows for it to regularly validate your data for integrity against data corruption.
I don't know if these qualify as "good", but I have two. One has been running for over 6 years and another for over 4 years.
I put my shucked drives in these, add them to OpenMediaVault and pool them up with MergerFS.
I had one of these for years. Quiet and reliable.
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_H2CWCJB2XG7XF7YJ7M3F
I did this for a long time without issue using this usb drive Bay. Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_XVDQB7XB65DFJAXZGNJ6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
You could consider a drive expander box if you have an eSata or USB3.0 ports available.
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_VS4BTXC1AFQ1GFYC6N8B?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
What's the difference between NAS boxes? There's a Mediasonic 4-bay NAS for $169. Is Synology more reliable or something?
For future storage I'd probably look into something external. NASs are relatively popular, and if you're just using it for network storage and not as a Plex server it doesn't need to be anything powerful, just good enough to serve files. That said, I never went the NAS route. When I first started growing my collection, I went with something similar to this HDD enclosure, which doesn't have its own processor or on-board RAID like a NAS, basically just acts as an external hard drive that can hold multiple drives at once (and is much cheaper than a NAS). Once I grew out of that, I went with a more custom solution with rackmounted hardware that offered more expandability than a traditional NAS.
As for the OS, I think Ubuntu Server is a good choice. Really any stable Linux flavor that you're comfortable with (or are willing to get comfortable with) will be a good choice for a Plex server.
Not sure if you know but in your situation it would be cheaper to get a DAS as opposed to a NAS.
Since you use a separate server and only use your NAS for storage then something like this would be more cost efficient. Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_9DXV7RM8J0RDBTXDZK1P?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
This one doesn't OFFICIALLY support Linux but lots of claims that it's fine with Linux. It's just seen as 4 individual drives, your OS/NAS would have to configure it accordingly of course if you wanted it as JBOD or some form of RAID: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
It's not USB 3.1 Gen 2 but honestly for hard drives it's not needed. It's USB 3.0 5Gbps ~ 625 MB/sec.
I own a couple myself, but haven't tried with Linux, only been using on a Windows box.
I'm sure the one you posted would work too if you really wanted USB 3.1 gen 2.
This one doesn't OFFICIALLY support Linux but lots of claims that it's fine with Linux. It's just seen as 4 individual drives, your OS/NAS would have to configure it accordingly of course if you wanted it as JBOD or some form of RAID: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
It's not USB 3.1 Gen 2 but honestly for hard drives it's not needed. It's USB 3.0 6Gbps ~ 750 MB/sec.
I own a couple myself, but haven't tried with Linux, only been using on a Windows box.
I have a Synology DS214+ as my Plex Media Server and I am locked down to 2 drive bays as my storage. I have 8TB in it already but all of my media is filling it up fast. I was wondering if I connected a Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 would I be able to see it in my NAS as another place to store my media? I attached a link to the device so that everyone can see what I am connecting as the external drive bay.
Get a eSATA card, then get an eSATA enclosure like this to expand.
SATA provides better stability when compared with USB, most of those USB multibay enclosure are not working well (especially those claimed with RAID option, I had 2 before and none works after a year)
I used a couple Mediasonic ProBox 4-bay enclosures for years and never had any issues. It looks like 4-bay is the smallest they go though, as they only have 2-bay RAID enclosures.
So I have the Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 (Non-RAID, I will be using as JBOD).
Can I run badblocks with the hard drive in the Mediasonic or do I need to connect it to my Raspberry Pi 4 with a SATA to USB 3.0 cable? I don't want to buy the cable and power just to do a burn-in test.
>Of course you could attach a bunch of drives using USB, but I would recommend using some kind of active cooling to make sure the drives don't get too hot.
I have a 4-bay usb enclosure(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)...would that suffice?
Is there any performance advantage to going with a DAS? (I'm primarily using the server as a filehost for a Plex server transcoding on another workstation).
Thanks for replying!
I have 64 usable TB on my system on two volumes. I have a 4x 29TB JOB raid backup enclosures using 4x https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4 with 4x 8TB drives each
Similar setup would work for you. I have the drives in the enclosure set as essentially raid using windows storage space. I have a script that then backs up the different shared folders I have to the different external enclosures
I don’t mean to discourage you! For me running Plex is just part of a broader hobby of playing with my PCs and getting a NAS can be a bunch of fun. It’s just that a NAS has a bit of security and management overhead that is a waste of time unless you plan to use some non-Plex things like raid, backup of other PCs, running your own vpn, sharing files with your household etc.
If you want to clean up your usb hd situation I recommend a 4-bay external enclosure. Usb3 should be fine, but there are enclosures with esata too. I have 4-bay mediasonic probox and when I fill it I’ll get another. I really like it. It’s filled with shucked 12 tb easystore drives. Amazon link Only downside is no hardware raid.
To answer you question regarding brands of NAS. I have a QNAP 451+ and I don’t recommend it. I suggest reading up on the r/qnap subreddit on how to secure your nas. It’s okay now but qnaps had security issues in the past. If I got another NAS it would definitely be a synology.
Regarding speed - a NAS with a wired connection to the router will easily handle 3 concurrent streams.
Which ever way you go hope you have fun!
So to clarify, I don’t have a usb hub, I have an enclosure, I don’t know if it makes a difference on what the box can read or not; do you think it would then be worth the price just to buy/build a mini windows machine that can definitely read all hdds and support ntfs?
I love questions like this.… it lets us talk about our servers!
In my opinion a dedicated pc is best. I’ve had several Plex servers ranging from a 2012 i5, QNAP 451+, and now an intel NUC. The only one that felt underpowered was the QNAP which sucked because it was pretty expensive.
Right now I am super happy with an Intel NUC with 2TB SSD and then an external drive enclosure with space for four hard drives. (A lot of my library is also on a share on the QNAP but served by the NUC) I’m really happy with the performance of the NUC and so far the external drive has let me expand as my collection has grown.
The NUC handles Plex, Jellyfin, sonarr, radarr, lidarr, dizquetv, Tdarr, xteve, and locast2plex no problem and is super compact.
The 4 bay enclosure I like is a mediasonic. $99 Amazon link
I ran my Plex server off of USB 2 drives from about 2011 to 2018 with no issues. Copy times were a bit slow but I could just start them up and walk away. I used an external 4 bay USB 3.0 (the computer only had USB 2 though) enclosure in JBOD mode starting in 2012 and once it was filled up I just started plugging in external drives. USB 2 was fast enough for multiple clients on the same network to stream with no issues.
first hit on amazon.
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed by Mediasonic Store Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_2RlUCbQA5R7JH
Well I already have the three externals [2TB, 4TB, 8TB], figured I'd shuck them and either put them in the MATX case itself (maybe nix the 1TB internal drive) if they can fit or get something like this to consolidate:
Edit: To add, may even decide to get rid of the 2TB since it's my oldest external that I'm using (I think I have a 512 GB FreeAgent drive in my basement I'm not using lol).
The externals currently hide behind my monitors that are on the arm stand. It's just that having those extra plugs freed up would be nice :D
I have two of these running. One for 3 years and one for 5 years.
They are filled with a mix of 4TB, 8TB and 10TB drives.
I've used them on Windows and Linux with no real problems so far. One had kind of a noisy fan, but that's it.
Basically plug and play.
In that case, you should definitely just pick up something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/
I've been using this exact model for ~two years and haven't had any problems aside from the obnoxious LEDs (which I've covered with velcro strips). Just slap some large capacity hard drives in there and plug the whole enclosure into the back of your computer, set your computer up to the TV with an HDMI (or you can use a quality monitor, as well), and run Kodi. This will be much, much simpler than fighting with servers and other wireless solutions.
General operation is simple. The hard drive enclosure must be turned on manually, but turns off when you shut the computer down. While turned on, the hard drives are seen as a bunch of external devices. Literally just point and click.
*Note: I use a Windows computer. I don't know if there are weird quirks to other operating systems.
I haven't set up this machine yet, but yes, it will be running an 8TB external HDD as the storage (internal SSD for running everything else on it).
The plan is to connect a DAS (something like this Mediasonic) to the device later on.
The 4570T should be able to handle transcoding with hw transcoding enabled in Plex. I only serve my Plex server to my own household (two people).
They sell them with fans as well. Just search for hdd enclosure fan. There's plenty of options for if you search for JBODs as well https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_10puFb52R8N5E
I wouldn't personally be too worried about heat because in the original hub I linked, all the drives are open to air so passive cooling will probably be enough for them as long as you don't put a blanket over them.
Sorta - I use this external 4-bay hard drive enclosure with mine, but I specifically picked it because it doesn't have hardware raid built in, since I wanted a software solution instead.
With that, OMV detects each drive separately, and I use mergerfs to pool them together so they appear as a single drive, and snapraid with a parity drive so I can recover in the event of a drive failure. And I use rsnapshot to keep backup copies of all my main folders from each of the past several days, weeks, months, and years.
An enclosure like that would also work if you wanted to just simply mirror 2 drives with rsync, like the other comment says, or rsnapshot. I believe actual RAID via USB is not recommended though.
I spent $100 and bought this for my old drives. Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_xQWrFb371MZB8
I just use it in spanning mode so that if I have a 1 4tb, it’s 4tb. If I upgrade my NAS, I take the old drive and put it in (say 6tb) I’ll have 10gb total storage. I then just plug this into the Synology.
That being said, only use it for buffer storage or data that I don’t particularly care about losing. For example, I’ll use Synology cloud sync to sync my google drive to it. It’s already backed up in the cloud, so I don’t need raid, but at the same time it’s nice to have all the files readily available without having to spot download them.
I like the ProBox enclosures but they're not cheap. A USB3 4 disk enclosure is around $99 retail. You might be able to find a used one cheaper. I think Sabrent might also make a similar enclosure for a bit less.
Example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4
If you don't need an actual NAS I would shuck the drives and put them into a mediasonic 4 bay enclosure... More than 4 drives get a second mediasonic 4 bay enclosure. Uses 1 power supply, and 1 USB 3 port.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
(I've got both the older USB 2 version amd the USB 3 one above and I've never had a problem with them)
Your going to outgrow those 2 internal sata connections very fast.
I have 2 of these connected to my usb 3.1 ports., each with 4 drives, a total of 8 and no need to compromise my moatzerboatds ports.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
I just got a few weeks ago a basic 4 bay hard drive enclosure. I wanted a simple way to use a bunch of old hard drives I had in storage. I got a Mediasonic ProBox. They have a ton of models to fit your needs and they are decently priced. This is the model I have: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gtqSEbRXGHDJR
Normally I’ve seen it range from $99-129 on Amazon.
Current Specs:
- Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5 Ghz
- 6 GB (3 x 2 GB), no idea what brand or speed. Also, one dimm is not working, hence the 6 and not 8 GB
- Silicon Power 256 GB SSD (No DRAM cache, so it kinda sucks, but currently OK as a buffer and boot drive)
- Insignia 2x USB 3.0 PCIe card
I currently have only a 2 TB External hooked up to this thing and it's far from full, but I would like to at least look into getting a DAS. I found one on Amazon for $99 that has pretty good reviews.
That was originally for a pair of external 4-bay enclosures. I've just recently built a new server with all the drives internal now. Next up is a GPU and some higher capacity drives to replace the older 4 and 6 TB drives.
You have several options:
The case has 5.25” bays. You can get adapters or drive cages to fit 3.5” drives into 5.25” bays.
You filled all the bays. You need to replace your existing drives with larger capacity and copy data.
You get external USB3 or eSATA enclosure. They vary in number of drives they support (1 or multiple). There are no durability issues as drives are mounted in enclosure and powered by dedicated power supplies.
You invest in network attached storage and build redundant RAID arrays.
The cheapest multiple drives in one enclosure with a fan solution is the Mediasonic Probox range. I just use them in JBOD (non-RAID) mode since I have disks in various sizes and makes. Mediasonic has 2 bay, 4 bay, and it seems an 8 bay version now.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
I used the free OpenMediaVault as the OS and built my server in an old cheap computer to start. I am tech savvy so I built my own second server and put it at a family members house as my offsite backup, but it sounds like that wouldn't be a good option for you.
With you wanting as much as 30TB of data on the server, an off site backup is a must and I would highly recommend some sort of RAID or redundancy. I decided to do mine on the cheap and use ZFS Raid1/RAID 5(only one disk of redundancy between 3 disks) and the offsite backup as a secondary.
When your talking about that much data you have to seriously look at whether or not your ISP imposes a monthly data cap. For my Comcast I can only use 1TB of data a month without incurring a bunch of extra cost. So regular offsite backups of a 30TB library would push me way over the edge, even if I backed up incrementally. And Restoring from any failures would push it over the edge again. If you have a data cap like I do I would recommend using an enclosure like this for backups. Plug it in and back up your stuff, then bring it to work or a friends and leave it until you want to run another backup. Restore process is quick since it isn't using the internet and it protects your data from a natural disaster at home.
If you won't be adding more drives you could just go with something like a MediaSonic ProBox. If it were me though I would still build a NAS to have room for more drives in the future.
I don’t know about that— quicksync hw transcoding does pretty well. No one has been able to pull numbers but my nuc7 (last gen) i7 which has only 2cores was able to transcode 10 streams at same time during my own test. Plus I run blueiris with 10 cameras running. It probably can handle more streams but i didn’t try more simultaneous tests since I don’t ever get that many simultaneous users! Hardware transcode is huge.
I used these Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.-JxCbGXEJE0M
I had a icydock and it had a firmware problem that caused issues ... I am never going to use them again. I have 3 media Sonics and they work pretty darn good.
Edit: they even have hardware raid built in. Never tried those versions, more expensive
why not just add one of these Mediasonic JBOD to your tower? No need for a separate NAS.
I'd recommend the Mediasonic Probox. I got two recently and they've been a wonderful solution for me, and they're much cheaper than what you posted.
Using them with esata was almost a disaster, though, with some very weird behavior, though I don't know if that was the enclosures, my esata controller card, the mobo or what. But with USB3 I can absolutely recommend them.
The R6 is not as flexible with 3.5 inch drive mounting as the R5 was.
It is a more modern case and does not prioritize 3.5 inch drives because they are so much less common these days.
In theory, you can fit both the drive cage and a slimmer front radiator in that case, but it will be a really tight squeeze.
The Define S supports three 3.5 inch drives.
I'm sure you can probably find a way to mount a fourth drive in there if you want to get creative. But it is not officially supported.
The other thing you can do is just buy whatever case you want and plug in a USB drive enclosure:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
I'm using an old laptop as my plex server ( i7-4710HQ + x2 860m's) and right now just have it hooked up to an external hard drive. I want to expand my storage so was thinking about shucking the external and getting a 4-bay NAS.
Do I need a NAS though or can I just use a hard drive enclosure like this ?
This is late but figured I'd respond anyway. I've found this drive bay on Amazon, which will let me mount two more drives [~24 total terabytes of storage (plus 500 gb ssd), when everything is said and done]. My motherboard will support it, even if it is external. If I upgrade in the future, the bay'll let me hold 4 extra harddrives, so that'll be cool too.
Until that time comes, however, I want my computer to be as low-profile as possible. Thanks for your concern!
That's the rackmount case that I was leaning towards if I went in that direction! Looks like it should be user-friendly if they're selling it to the consumer market.
Do you own this case? How do you like it? If they had a hot-swap version of the 15-bay model, I'd probably have bought it in a heartbeat.
As for the DAS unit you mentioned...is that basically this but much bigger? https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_1
I'd be open to a DAS, but unRaid doesn't seem to like any external drives, even if they're shucked and in that Mediasonic ProBox.
I'm using one of these with a Mac Mini: https://www.amazon.ca/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=pd_sbs_147_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AEKMMEPNKRC9KQA86Q0W
They have an 8 drive version as well. I'm not a power user, just doing some light plex. Works well, since the mini has usb 3.0
If your objective is to have all three plugged in at the same time you'll probably need a four bay enclosure.
Something like this:
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_YTKBAb8NQGCG7
They make similar enclosures for DVD drives. Just depends on if it is a slim drive or not
When I first started I simply used something like this MediaSonic 4-bay. It's cheap and effective, albeit not the prettiest. I would create a second array or leave it in jbod though and keep it separate from your existing array because accidentally smacking the cable could take down your entire array
I have done both: directly connecting bare drives through a 4-disk vertical loading USB dock, and ready-made external portable hard drives, and both work great (with a significant performance and cost advantage to the bare drives+dock approach).
A few years ago, I've also started using this: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4 It's quite fast and portable, and seems to protect the disks well (I've even sent it with disks inside on checked air travel luggage with no ill effects).
Oh, that's quality one, lol. I got one of those el cheapo 2.5" enclosures for doing an OS swap when upgrading the old laptop to an SSD. I also have a Mediasonic Probox waiting for me to set up.
You could also just get a tiny usb hub to connect multiple externals with a single plug. Avoids the effort and risk in shucking.
A Direct Attached Storage device would look a bit nicer, but can get pricey for the quality ones and still leaves you limited by USB bandwidth. Here's an example of a cheap but nice looking one
just get a multi disk enclosure if you don't actually need a NAS. https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1501343810&sr=1-1&refinements=p_n_feature_keywords_browse-bin%3A2886967011
Let me preface this by saying that I have a home server that I use for all my storage needs.
File Structures:
- TV Shows > Show Name > Season > Episodes
- Movies > Just movie files
- Pictures > Personal organization stuff
- User Files > Username > Files
- Other Video > Video Type (IE YouTube) > Video Series (IE LTT) > Year published > Video Files
File Sharing:
- Videos: Plex
- Everything else: Mapped drives. I have 4 main ones, Movies, TV, Scan, Files. I don't really need anything but the files and scan share, but meh.
Backups:
- Super duper important files: Google Drive
- Everything else: Redundant JBoD pool.
- Offisite backup: I used to have a few of these at a buddies' house, and vice verse.
I have a similar home setup, 2 PC's and 2 laptops, but chose to go a simple route. (Maybe too simple by some standards.) My PC has this: $100 Mediasonic ProBox 4 Bay 3.5" SATA HDD Enclosure attached to it with 4 6tb drives. Two are for data and two are for backups of that data. I use Robocopy (free Microsoft software) as a scheduled task to mirror the drives nightly.
The two data drives are mapped and shared with the other computers.
For my most precious data (mostly photos), I have them also backed up to the cloud.
2 drive enclosures are pretty reasonable. They cost about $40-60.
4 drive enclosures cost quite a bit more. Around $100.
If you want NAS capabilities, it will be significantly more expensive than this.Like $300+
4 drives, no NAS, $99: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
Can OpenMediaVault configure a RAID reliably? I'm try to use this with something like an intel NUC but am unsure of what OS to use. How well does OpenMediaVault work with windows?
I bought a Mediasonic Probox a while back to use as a backup drive JBOD box. They have a 4-drive and an 8-drive model; I have the 4-drive box. It's been decent in my limited use case, which was to consolidate a bunch of small external HDDs in one big box so I didn't have to wrangle so many USB and power cables when I wanted to plug in an external backup. The drive slots are "half" trayless, in that there's a handle that attaches to the front screws of the drives but then the drive just slides in. I didn't find anything cheaper when I was looking around.
The disks are accessed as regular USB mass storage devices by default, each individually. SMART data is passed through with no issues.
Could grab a multi bay external enclosure like say this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=pd_cp_147_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GGW3A9T2R9AA4FH2GRE8 and then setup windows 10 storage spaces for the equivalent of raid 1/0/10/5/6.. probably 1, 10, or 6.
Maybe look into WD MyCloud? It might be a little to weak for your needs though.
A little bit more expensive would be a 4-bay enclosure with a raid controller. Something like https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HF2-SU3S2-Enclosure-Support-transfer/dp/B003X26VV4/
and then hook it up to an old low power pc and install owncloud to manage the web interface.
Is this the kind of thing you're talking about?
I've never heard of DrivePool, but it seems like it could be a good solution. It looks like it's just customizable RAID1, so I could lose 3 drives at home and still not have to worry about getting into my offsite backup. Would you say this is just a cheaper alternative than NAS, or would it actually be better overall for my purposes? Are there any downsides to leaving a NAS box off and only using it for an hour at a time?
I use a dual boot Macbook with OSX and Windows 7 but mostly stick to the Windows side. It probably wouldn't be too much of a hassle to use a flash drive when I needed to access files on the Mac side, although one of the benefits that pushed me toward a NAS was the network transfer speed compared to USB. Maybe I could use an eSATA to Ethernet adapter?
Edit: also, now that I think about it, I'm realizing that mirroring 3-4 drives is a lot of money per GB of storage. Or maybe I need to research drivepool more. I guess part of the benefit to a NAS was being able to use RAID5 or RAID10 to not be paying $90 or so per 1TB drive to only end up with 1TB in the end.
Side question, I heard zfs is the best filesystem period, but its linux, anyway to use zfs on windows? Or If I plan on using a windows pc and the hard drives on a separate hard drive enclosure in something like this, can I use zfs for just those drives without breaking functionality in windows?
Is it one of these?
I bought two of these to temporarily migrate all my data to while I was rebuilding my primary array and they were great, solid units. but with a soft power button. It never bit me, but that was a deal breaker for using them long term.
Does a hard drive enclosure like this work the same as putting my drives in my PC?
I have two SSDs in my comp which contain my OS and desktop apps, as well as certain games I like to run quickly. I have 4 HDDs which are used for media storage and then games which I don't mind running slower.
My problem is a simple one, but I basically want to remove my HDD bay from inside my case (for airflow, cabling, and aesthetic reasons) and move it external.
My question is if the behavior is the exact same? Like if I hooked up this external bay, do I get the same speeds? Can I access two different drives at the same time (so much as I can internally)? Etc.
Hey, I'm on an upgraded Dell Poweredge T20, too! I ended up picking up a couple of these to house all of my media drives. I installed Mediasonic's eSATA card, so I could get the full speed from the drives. It's a beautiful solution to a (kind of) cramped case. I'm up to 39.2TB of usable space (4.12TB free).
I also did the SSD boot drive upgrade.
I also upgraded the CPU, but I went with a Xeon E3-1240. I do lots of sharing.
I'm still running the stock 4GB ECC ram that it came with, and I've been blown away with the performance. I'm running every Plex related webapp you could imagine (Sickrage, PlexPy, etc) and I usually peak my ram usage around 85-95%. I do want to upgrade the ram very soon so I have room to grow, but I'm still so happy with how far that 4GB has gone.
Oh and I'm running Server 2012 R2. Great OS.
A USB drive would be considered a DAS (Direct attached storage), NAS specifies that you're using a network interface (Network attached storage), usually a host running shares of some sort.
I have one of these:
That I use as an external drive, it's got a RAID. I've been running one for a couple years now completely headache free for various tasks.
Makes a handy landing zone when moving lots of data between servers or if I need to rebuild a storage array on something else.
I'll be curious to hear people's thoughts. I have the same question.
I have a SFF PC that could potentially replace my very old current server, it just can't fit any disks. If I get an external enclosure then I can use the SFF as my new server since I rarely require any transcoding. The benefit I see to a NAS is that I could later upgrade that SFF system to something else if I find I need more power. Where a NAS you're pretty much stuck with what you have.
Been eyeing this guy up.
saw one of these the other day when i was looking for NAS .. some guy said he hooked it to a usb port on his wireless router
http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
think i would rather have raid though but you lose a drive but gain the parity
these are super cheap and would let you run 4 drives off of 1 USB 3 port. I used these until I was able to build a full size server for plex/etc. I also have gotten completely away from RAID and just do 1:1 backups of drives. I use a windows program called GoodSync to automate that.
http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
$99. eSATA and USB 3.0. Supports up to 6TB per drive.
Edit: Is Hotway the same as Mediasonic? I used mine with eSATA and it was fine. I don't know about USB 3.0.
The NAS is kind of overkill if I can just attach an enclosure to the NUC.
Thanks!
I've got about a dozen drives that I've been using for non critical data storage (game installer folders/files, steam library backup, all my DVD and bluray and tv series backups, my entire music collection backup is copied there, etc)
I keep them all in these beautifully simple JBOD boxes
I've started running out of space so instead of adding more of these, I'm phasing out the 2tb drives and replacing with WD 6tb red drives.
Yea, diskutier will take care of the raid. It will warn you when a drive has a problem. The server is a program in the app store that does a heck of a lot. Being on a satellite internet with 4 macs, I don't want to download the same update or app more than once. The caching server grabs it as you are downloading the app/update to an app and keeps a copy on the server. This is what I bought to house the drives. http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
I tested the throughput by streaming 4 1080p movies from the iTunes server from the raid array at the same time with no pauses at all. That was over gigE.
No it's just A storage box, no raid controller in this model. Mediasonic on amazon. Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA, Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps hard drive transfer rate https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_uvvWvbZ5E7D36
This may be a bit pricy, but it's really not that much more than the cost of a few 5.25 to 3.5 adapters and a SATA card:
You can connect it to your PC over USB 3.0. The theoretical speeds would be as high, but in the real world it will be fast enough that you won't tell the difference.
The plus side is that would can treat it like any other external storage and easily more it between PCs. It's not exactly portable, but it's the next best thing.
This is what I bought. I have 5Tb drives in it connected with the USB 3 cable, but it also has esata if you prefer it that way, controllable fan speeds, and easy to setup. This is not a NAS and will not allow RAID (although they have a different model that will allow it), so it is for storage and access only - works very well with my Plex setup.
I use this one, http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
The only issue is that you can't really get SMART data over USB. While I don't rely on it, it might be good to catch something.
I use it with 4x4TB drives and have a ZFS RAIDZ2 volume on it.
Honestly, I just don't see the market for something like this. The number of people who need the massive amount of storage that 4 drives provides, but do not have space for a Micro ATX case is incredibly small.
Also, you can also connect a NUC to something like this over USB 3.0:
I found This could I not connect it to the router? It reads storage ready via a usb connection?
You can do the Mediasonic Probox line for that. I have the one without RAID, but use software (DrivePool) for redundancy. It works great via USB. My only complaint is the back fan can be loud.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
They also make one with RAID built in:
> Until I build the Nas I'd like to just increase the amount of hard drives my PC can hold
If you want a low tech solution that just gives you more space for disks, what about a JBOD/DAS solution? I have one of these Mediasonic models and have one of these Terramasters coming soonish.
I can't speak for the Terramaster yet, but the Mediasonic is dead easy. The drives are basically plug and play (just need to screw on the... sled? I don't know the term, sorry). The unit itself is plug and play. There's no software (it's not e.g. a Synology device with built-in RAID capabilities), it just functions to essentially give you extra SATA ports in your PC at the expense of either an eSATA port or a USB port.
If you're using a hardware RAID controller I'm not sure this is a good option for you though. I'm not familiar with them, but something tells me you can't just plug in extra external drives into that setup.
Theoretically, if FreeNAS can read and write to the drive, then the connection type doesn't matter.
In practice, USB adapters like this tend to report the same serial number for every drive, which causes problems because then FreeNAS thinks it's the same drive. Docks like this also aren't intended for 24/7 operation, so things like heat and vibration may be a problem.
The "correct" solution is a proper SAS enclosure, SAS drives, and a SAS HBA, but that's expensive and usually noisy.
A slightly more "correct" but still relatively cheap solution that I've used is a 4-bay eSATA enclosure plus an internal-to-eSATA adapter or a FreeNAS-compatible eSATA HBA (which I don't have a good recommendation at the moment). While the enclosure has a USB mode, this enclosure has that "all drives have the same serial number" problem in USB mode. It works correctly in eSATA mode. Be sure to turn off the "power sync" mode (hold the "sync" button for 2-3 seconds) as it doesn't work reliably and will cause the enclosure to power off. You only have to switch off "power sync" mode once; it remembers the setting.
It all comes down to risk tolerance and budget. If you're okay with increased risk, and budget is the most important thing, and you're okay fiddling with gmultipath as linked above, then go for it.
Please remember that RAID (including RAIDZ/RAIDZ2/mirroring) is not a backup. You still need a backup system (3-2-1). There are a number of ways to lose all your data at once: human error, software corruption bugs like the one fixed in 12.0-U1.1, hardware corruption bugs, flood, fire, theft, spilled drinks, animal urine (pets, or wild animals breaking in), etc.
You can have a standalone plex server for $90. $110 if you count getting it an ssd. You can plug in regular usb3 drives and use those, or consider a multi-drive enclosure for $120 more.
Together, they'll draw like 25 watts, which should be way less than the gaming rig.
HP ProDesk 400 for $110 on eBay. Offer the seller $90.
I have 2 of these https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4 with 4 drives in one and 2 in the other (room for expansion!). I'm using a zfs file system with the drives mirrored. I also copy the videos to a Drobo. I DO have the original DVDs, but I figured the time involved in recreating my library of 800+ videos was worth something! I use Handbrake so all files are compressed and I use MP4.
+1 to Mediasonic Probox. Don't know rate them soso, but I have eight 4 bay and 2 bay units and love them. The oldest are ~5-6 years old and *knock wood*, the only issue I've had is one the fans got noisy. A bit hard to find the slim size necessary (Mediasonic doesn't sell them directly anymore), but replaced the fan and I can't remember which box is the one I fixed!
Be sure to watch the prices though. The 4 bay non-RAID USB 3.0/eSATA (I use USB 3.0) should be ~$110-120 U.S., but the price keeps going up and down on Amazon.
Woot! It's down to $99 U.S. right now! The price they were last year before all the up and down. https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=probox&qid=1593576057&sr=8-1
Ordered two as spares!
https://perfectmediaserver.com/
I set up a home server on a Thinkpad T440 just last weekend following this guide. I have 4 old mismatched HDD's in an external enclosure using MergerFS and Snapraid. Not an ideal setup, but it's worked great so far as a budget NAS and running some self-hosted apps(HomeAssistant, Bookstack, etc.)
I'd recommend using a dashboard like Heimdall or Homer to keep all of your links organized, and a VPN of some sort to work on it remotely. I'm using Tailscale and it's been great so far.
Trying to figure out my options for upgrading my server as my current "server" keeps shutting down/dying and seems to be on its last legs...
Current setup:
- Old Gaming Laptop running the server
- Media is hooked up to the laptop via this 4 bay HDD enclosure (the 4 drives are pooled with StableBit)
I have some hardware sitting around unused that could be put towards building something:
- CPU i5-7400
- CPU i7-7700k (not sure if this works actually)
- GPU: GTX 1060 3gb
- Ram: 1x 8b DDR4 2133mhz
- PSU: 500watt
I can get up to around 8 (normal night around 5 or 6) remote streams with a lot of them transcoding 1080p files
Is the above the makings of a decent server? I kind of want this next server to be the end all/be all and so I won't have to upgrade again for a long time.
I was looking at splurging on a nice NAS like this, but also have the above hardware just sitting there. Additionally, I'm used to running my server on windows and while I'm not opposed to running it on a NAS I am a little concerned on the ease of transferring the server (plex, sonarr, radarr) from windows to a NAS (although i enjoy tinkering and learning new software so not a huge issue).
Right now I would probably just use it for Plex, but I wouldn't mind the freedom to tinker around with other uses. Maybe use it as an htpc/emulator for games, run a Tor node, host non-plex servers, VPN, etc.
I also have a good gaming pc (i7-10700k; RTX 3080). Maybe I just plug the HDD enclosure into that and be done with it? With the current plex server dying, I may actually just do that in the interim while I decide what to do. But I don't think that's a long term solution because I'd prefer to have my pc and plex server separate.
Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions!
Trying to figure out my options for upgrading my server as my current "server" keeps shutting down/dying and seems to be on its last legs...
Current setup:
Old Gaming Laptop running the server
Media is hooked up to the laptop via this 4 bay HDD enclosure (the 4 drives are pooled with StableBit)
I have some hardware sitting around unused that could be put towards building something:
CPU i5-7400
CPU i7-7700k (not sure if this works actually)
GPU: GTX 1060 3gb
Ram: 1x 8b DDR4 2133mhz
PSU: 500watt
I can get up to around 8 (normal night around 5 or 6) remote streams with a lot of them transcoding 1080p files
Is the above the makings of a decent server? I kind of want this next server to be the end all/be all and so I won't have to upgrade again for a long time.
I was looking at splurging on a nice NAS like this, but also have the above hardware just sitting there. Additionally, I'm used to running my server on windows and while I'm not opposed to running it on a NAS I am a little concerned on the ease of transferring the server (plex, sonarr, radarr) from windows to a NAS (although i enjoy tinkering and learning new software so not a huge issue).
Right now I would probably just use it for Plex, but I wouldn't mind the freedom to tinker around with other uses. Maybe use it as an htpc/emulator for games, run a Tor node, host non-plex servers, VPN, etc.
I also have a good gaming pc (i7-10700k; RTX 3080). Maybe I just plug the HDD enclosure into that and be done with it? With the current plex server dying, I may actually just do that in the interim while I decide what to do. But I don't think that's a long term solution because I'd prefer to have my pc and plex server separate.
Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions!
What do you think about the cheap chinese RAID enclosures?
Like this https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Mediasonic-HF2-SU3S2-compartimientos-compatibilidad-transferencia/dp/B003X26VV4/
there are different ways you could set it up. some ppl get a 10 port usb and sata to usb to connectors. then just raw dog the hdds around. if you got pets and shit that could knock things around i would say get enclosures ($$$ around $100 for each hdd bay)
i have both
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
both work fine.
then theres stuff like this
prob for chia farmers and more diy
> LIKE THIS Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_YBESR3KNVAGMW8P035YW or this Yottamaster Aluminum Alloy 5 Bay USB3.0 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure for 3.5 Inch SATA HDD Support 5 x 16TB & UASP,Mac Style Designed for Personal Storage at Home&Office- [PS500U3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XK972L1/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_41DCXN7M3EHD5Z67RCWP?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Between that and the Walmart PC poster above suggested you've spent more than the DS1019+ for a hodgepodge that you have to spend time setting up the base software on.
> I was explaining how to simply do it with a pc
Great?
That's got nothing to do with /u/froop's claim that
> the going rate for a Synology is double-triple the price of an equivalent DIY Nas
They offered a suggestion of a less-than-equivalent that ultimately costs more.
> The first PC listed on walmart.com is $600
I bought a couple of these, originally filled em with the shucked 8TB easystore drives, now replacing those with the 16 & 18TB drives depending on when they are on sale. They work even though the description says up to 14TB.
Plex has no problem with this setup, sometimes the drives get lost when restarting my server but then I just have to cycle the power on the enclosure to re-connect them. The enclosures are small and take up very little room, I've never noticed them overheating. Very happy with this setup.
Maybe what you want is just a DAS. A simple 4 bay USB device like a Mediasonic: <em>https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4</em>
You will have access to each disk individually, but you can throw in another drive as desired.
You can add RAID to a DAS or make it JBOD which makes the drives dependent on each other.
I'm using a NUC8I5BEH with Windows Server 2019 connected to a Thunderbay 8 with 8 x WD Red 8TB drives via TBT3.
It supports Hardware Transcoding with Quick Sync Video when running as a service. It is working great, even with multiple streams. Prior to the Thunderbay 8 I was using a Mediasonic ProBox 8 USB 3 which worked fine as a JBOD.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
Esata is definitely going to be better than USB3 in my experience.
If you get short sleep times you can use something like "keep drive spinning" that writes to a file on the disk every X minutes. Dunno what OS you're using but that's what I use on OSX. Easy to self-program on Linux as well.
Mediasonic Probox HF2-SU3S2 but I'm very much after NUC information for Canada suppliers...
All in all that enclosure is pretty cheap. Only thing I know of that is cheaper would be:
Short of making your own chassis with spare parts this is a bit of a hard ask.
I bought this drive and fiw it worked in my toaster and my hdd enclosure without any mods
I bought this a year ago now problems.
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_g_FV80FX6RH5H2QDAFT3D7
you can use this, I currently use this for my custom build server:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA HDD… | $136.99 | $136.99 | 4.3/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
The key here is plural. Backup(s) of your primary drive. Two sets of backups, one ideally kept offsite. One backup is better than none, but two (or more) is exponentially (because of Murphy's Law) better than one!
You have have at least 14TB of usable space. While I prefer 1:1 drive size wise of my drives, splitting between two or more drives is better than no backup at all.
IMO, there's no such thing as spare drives. Only drives used for 4th, 5th, 6th, etc., temporary backup until you need to put them to use in another capacity.
I wouldn't sell them because no matter how you slice it, you'll never get more per TB than you would have to pay for a new drive. Use one set for a warm/live backup and a second set for cold backup.
Unless you need to have multiple drives available at once, I'd go with a one or two bay dock or a set of SATA to USB cables. Get at least two sets of cables in case one goes bad and makes you think your drive is bad, instead of the cables. Figure $20-$30 per bay/cable, no matter how many you need.
For a 4 bay enclosure, I use and recommend the Mediasonic Probox. https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=9MMWAISGK8XC&dchild=1&keywords=mediasonic+probox&qid=1632600718&sprefix=probox+mediasonic%2Caps%2C265&sr=8-3
IMO, it's a bit overpriced at $130, used to be $100-$110 last year, but I would buy it at this price if I needed a replacement.
Something like this. Doesn't have to be this one, but something like it: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
Everyone is saying not to do this, so now I'm nervous.
I just set up an array with this.
There are tons of external hard drive boxes that you can connect via USB. I have no experience with this box but it is one of many.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
I own solution is put an LSI SAS card with SFF-8088 external connectors in my server. I put the drives in an old PC case with an old PSU.
This adapter does the PSU jumper thing so that you don't need a motherboard.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0756WFMNF/
Then I use one of these cables from my main server's external SFF-8088 port to 4 hard drives in the extra case.
https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-SFF-8088-Female-Controller-Backplane/dp/B013G4EX9K/
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
I have one of those connected to an old laptop that sits on top of it in a closet acting as a media center and NAS for my home network.
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Lay-Flat-Docking-EC-DFFN/dp/B013WODZH0/
I have 2 of these (though they're the USB 2.0 versions) that I actively use to keep files I don't want taking up SSD space on my gaming machine.
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Docking-Supports-DS-UTC1/dp/B07B3S5FSF/
I have 3 of these for quick plug and plug harddrive swapping for when I'm looking for old files (one of the 3 has a E-SATA option which I love.)
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
​
How about this one?
+1
I use and recommend the Mediasonic Probox: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=probox&qid=1615776449&sr=8-1
It sometimes goes down to $100.
It's not only other sellers that change their pricing, but Amazon themselves. Whatever accounting method they use, their pricing fluctuates based on either demand or wholesale cost. As an example, I follow the pricing of this: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=probox+mediasonic&qid=1615652260&sr=8-3
This is the DAS I have: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_94GJ8MBZMKRX55B8PY75
And my modem/router: https://www.rogers.com/customer/support/article/cgn3support
You could go DAS depending on how many drives you want.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
> AS5202T
PDF warning: Check out the Datasheet for your NAS.
They specifically call out that you can expand it with "Up to three AS6004U expansion units"
It appears to also support other external storage devices. I bet you can get a Mediasonic ProBox and use that, if you like.
Why not buy an external RAID box or Storage box for your drives - they come in 2 to 5 or more bay sizes. See https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_1?
I used this: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
But it was only $84 when I bought it. Not sure why it's so expensive now.
I like to have two backups. one at my house, one offsite in a bank safety deposit box
I have 64 usable TB on my system on two volumes. I have a 4x 29TB JOB raid backup enclosures using 4x https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4 with 4x 8TB drives each
i perform a backup once per month. after three consecutive backups i swap the disk enclosures between the house and deposit box
i like to have two backups. one at my house, one offsite, so 16 gigs of data require 32 gigs of JUST backup space
i have 64 usable TB on my system on two volumes. i have a 4x 29TB JOB raid backup enclosures using 4x https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4 with 4x 8TB drives each
as such i have 64 TB usable on my server +29 TB usable on backup space per backup enclosure
=64+(29*4)= 180 TB total usable space
Warning - large wall of text incoming! :)
- Yes. You want something like this, though since I have never used one, I cannot speak to its reliability.
- Absolutely. Be careful with Seagate's HDDs, though, as many of them are SMR, which can be quite slow when writing to them. Once the data is written, however, read speeds are not significantly different from any other drive. I use an SMR drive in my own primary storage pool (which is mainly used for TV shows and movies). I let sabnzbd, Sonarr, and Radarr do their things while I'm sleeping, working, generally living life, and whenever I decide to make time to watch TV, my media is all there, ready to go. :)
- RAID is really only for guaranteeing uptime in the case of HDD failure (RAID level selected, and how many drives are involved, dictate how many drives can fail before the storage pool goes offline). As I'm the only one using my server, I use StableBit's DrivePool. It's not free, but it's cheap (and a one time purchase). Lets me 'pool' any drive type and size into the pool, so I don't have to worry about matching drive sizes / etc. It also has a file / folder duplication feature, so if I do store something on the pool that I'd like some level of protection for, I select the file(s) / folder, tell it how many drives I want that data stored upon, and it does the rest. Much easier than dealing with RAID, in my opinion.
- Depends. I have a secondary storage server (which is used as a backup for certain data I store) that runs XPEnology (the same software Synology NAS devices run). It has seven 4TB WD SAS enterprise drives installed, which is configured for RAID6. I have had no issues expanding the array (it started out as six 2TB drives, which I replaced as I could afford, and when all the 2TB drives were gone, I was able to expand the array, and the volumes located on that array, without issue). Some hardware RAID controllers do not have this functionality. StableBit's DrivePool also allows you to expand your storage pool. I have little experience with other software and hardware setups...
Something like this?
YES you can buy it empty and add in a single drive
You can slowly move things over to the NAS to free up space in the NUC
What's your budget range?
You can buy something like a "4 bay empty "ICYDOCK" JBOD enclosure" for around $/£100 mark that will let you move those 2 drives over to the unit and have space for 2 more drives.
Here's a rebranded version of it: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
As it's a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) unit so each drive is seen individually by the OS. it connects by eSATA (old) or USB3. That will free up USB connections, and no raid rebuild required.
​
I will do that. What about using something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=NB2875CW1DPT82752ZRG
Since the both those boards have native USB 3 you'd just buy something like this:https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
So just run that directly to the SBC. If you go the libre/rock64 route make sure to get the 1gb version since Open Media Vault doesn't even use 512mb and the new RK3399 boards are going to be around the same price as the 4GB version.
Here's what I'd get now if you want to spend a little more since it's the same form factor as the raspi so you have a fuck ton of cases to choose from https://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=69&product_id=234
Here's my current setup with links to Amazon for everything. https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniPCs/comments/9h4hf9/best_sbc_for_openmediavault/e6asut0/
Pics https://imgur.com/a/M21EoiW?desktop=1
Regarding RAID, I would avoid any external enclosures built in RAID and I would run FreeNAS instead of Open Media Vault. You're gonna have to build a mini itx system tho and it's gonna cost you way more. I run JBOD and have another NAS that backs up important stuff from the main NAS.
So Desktop with 2.5TB of SSDs and 4TB HDD backs up to the main NAS(4x8TB) and then I have another NAS(1x8TB) that backs up the main NAS important shit.
Really depends on what you wanna do, I'm going be at the airport all day so feel free to ask me anything, I work in IT as a sys admin so I've tried higher end NAS(s) but they're expensive as fuck and overkill for home use imo.
I saw this on amazon and the specs say it is a DAS
Thinking of trying it out, any thoughts?
my server has two volumes currently, a little over 30TB of usable space each. i use four of these as my backup targets
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4
each with 3x 12tb drives in a single raid volume. (10.9 x 3 = 32.7TB usable)
i have four of these enclosures so 12 drives total (all shucked from WD external drives when on sale)
i keep two enclosures in my house performing monthly backups using a script i wrote to backup each of my two 30TB volumes. the other two enclosures are in a safety deposit box.
every 3 months (or three consecutive backups) i swap the enclosures between my house and the safety deposit box and repeat.
​
periodically (perhaps 2x times per year) i also run a different portion of my script which generates CRCs of every file on my server, then generates CRCs for every file in my backups, compares them, and lets me know if there are any differences
Unless this is a 'woosh'... A disk shelf is usually just a different name for a DAS or Disk Attached Storage. I'm a fan of Mediasonic Boxes (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A2WSTUX2A6RQ1A&psc=1) but they are kinda expensive at $99 for 4 disk over USB3.1
Yup. You just have to make sure you get one that is multiport, so that it can support multiple drives from a single port.
I'm using this enclosure with this card.
Assuming you're in the U.S., Mediasonic Probox for $100 new: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-p13n1_0?cv_ct_cx=probox&dchild=1&keywords=probox&pd_rd_i=B003X26VV4&pd_rd_r=70666f86-69b2-46f5-b845-529b1b12f9ab&pd_rd_w=AJF53&pd_rd_wg=BdbGw&pf_rd_p=13bf9bc7-d68d-44c3-9d2e-647020f56802&pf_rd_r=JVRECA25DSR93PV2664P&psc=1&qid=1596512638&sr=1-1-791c2399-d602-4248-afbb-8a79de2d236f
~$25/bay. Have multiple 4 bay and 8 bay boxes and have been using and loving them for years.
You could save a few dollar by getting a dock instead of an enclosure, but the heat the drives give off, plus the fact that bottom inch or of the drive is completely enclosed in the dock, makes a no-go for me, even though I have a two and four bay dock. Okay for temp use, but not for long term usage.
Someone claimed on another thread you could get used NAS enclosures for $10-15/bay, but that's a big YMMV depending on where you live.
The 4 bay Probox is available at $99 on Amazon right now https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_32?dchild=1&keywords=8+bay&qid=1592587483&sr=8-32
But the Syba 8 bay is at $269!
I bought one of these almost exactly 6 years ago according to Amazon https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_BXyOEbMV8YGAZ
I have four 4TB WD Reds in there now. I like the variable speed fan that keeps things cool.
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
thats the cheapest one I found with decent reviews. There's more expensive options if you search amazon.
YUP! This. USB 3.0 works just fine. The MediaSonic Probox is fairly popular around here. It supports both USB 3.0 and ESATA. You'll need to make sure your ESATA supports port multipliers, or get an add-on card. Here is the one that I use. Works great and can support 2 of the MediaSonic ProBoxes.
>I think I would at least need USB 3.
Perhaps the Mediasonic ProBox?
So, I'm a complete novice where a lot of this stuff is concerned and after a few hours spent reading about NAS and RAID and what not, my head is sort of spinning. The thing is, most everything suggested here and most other places seems like overkill for my needs, and also too expensive for my budget. Also, something like "build your own NAS from the ground up" is beyond my capabilities, so I need to just be able to buy something and throw a bunch of drives into it. Basically what I need is more storage to fill up with movies and that's pretty much it. I currently have three external drives (an 8 TB, a 4 TB, and a 2 TB) hooked up to my computer, which is also my media server. I'm running out of space on all the drives and usb ports to plug them into. My computer is a Dell XPS 8500 with an Intel i7-3770 3.4 GHz CPU and 16 GB of RAM with Windows 10. I'm only running Plex for my home media setup; there's never more than two people/devices using it at once, and most often, just one. I've never had any issues with my home computer being the server, everything is speedy and runs perfectly. Do I need a NAS if all I'm after is more storage and I don't need it to serve as a server? Could I just get some kind of dummy box like this and just put some drives in it and call it good? I don't really care about backup, which I'm aware is a ridiculous thing to say, but I'm talking about disks of questionably obtained movies and tv shows. If one of them failed, I'd be sad for ten minutes and then just reacquire a bunch of stuff. I could just upgrade one of my external drives, but that's starting to feel a bit wasteful, and I'd like to get something that's not as clunky as having three separate external disks sitting on my desktop. I'd like to start with at least 20 TB of storage with the ability to upgrade to more in future by putting in a new drive. Is a 4 bay Hard Drive enclosure fine for my needs or is there something else I need a NAS for that I'm not aware of?
Current: (6-1) x 4 TB = 20 TB
New:
(3-1) x 6 TB = 12 TB
(3-1) x 4 TB = 8 TB
20 TB total
You don't gain any space by doing this, though you do prepare for the future.
Are you able to add more drives to your system, perhaps externally? I've personally used these Mediasonic 4-bay enclosures along with an eSATA controller (though the enclosures also support USB3). Get some black electrical tape though, because the blue lights on the enclosure are brighter than the sun. The only downside with port-splitter enclosures is that if one drive fails and knocks out the SATA bus, the other 3 drives will drop offline too. The infamous 3 TB Seagates did that, but I had other drives (both 3 TB WD and 2 TB Seagates) fail without interfering with the other drives. Nothing was permanently damaged; just had to remove the failed drive before the other 3 started working again. Also, the enclosure is not hot-swap; you have to power down to replace drives. But hey, it's $99 for 4 drive bays.
6 TB Red drives are $200 right now ($33/TB); 8 TB are $250 ($31/TB), and 10 TB are $279 ($28/TB).
Instead of spending $600 (three 6 TB drives) and getting nothing, spend $672 ($558 for two 10 TB drives, $100 for enclosure, $30 for controller, $4 for black electrical tape) and get +10 TB by adding a pair of 10 TB drives in a mirror in an enclosure, and have another 2 bays free for future expansion.
(6-1) x 4 TB = 20 TB
(2-1) x 10 TB = 10 TB
30 TB total, $668 for +10 TB
Later buy another two 10 TB drives and put them in the two empty slots:
(6-1) x 4 TB = 20 TB
(2-1) x 10 TB = 10 TB
(2-1) x 10 TB = 10 TB
40 TB total, $558 for +10 TB
Then in the future you only have to upgrade two drives at a time, and you can replace your smallest drives with the now-replaced drives.
You can repeat this with a second enclosure, of course. :)
Don't forget that some of your drives will fail outside of warranty, which can speed your replacement plans. If a 4 TB drive fails, go ahead and replace it with a 10 TB drive. You won't see any immediate effect, but you'll turn that 20 TB RAIDz1 into 50 TB that much quicker.
Oh, and make sure you've set your recordsize to save some space! For datasets where you're mainly storing large video files, set your recordsize to 1 MB: "zfs set recordsize=1M poolname/datasetname". This only takes effect on new writes, so you'd have to re-write your existing files to see any difference. You can rewrite files with "cp -a filename tmpfile; mv tmpfile filename" for all files, or a much easier way is just create a new dataset with the proper recordsize, move all files over, then delete the old dataset and rename the new dataset.
See this spreadsheet. With 6 disks in RAIDz1 and the default 128K record size (16 sectors on the chart) you're losing 20% to parity. With 1M record size (256 sectors on the chart) you're losing only 17% to parity. 3% for free!
https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/9pawl7/zfs_space_efficiency_and_performance_comparison/
https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/b931o0/zfs_recordsize_faq/
I do not use one, but I've heard good things about this unit and the 8 bay version: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1C3SPT5FZ6I9W&keywords=8+bay+external+hard+drive+enclosure&qid=1551468546&s=gateway&sprefix=8+bay+external%2Caps%2C197&sr=8-4
I personally have just one external enclosure for my backups since my library is under 3TB. I have no offsite backups going, but should look into that in case my house burns to the ground. But, honestly if that happened my Plex library is the least of my concerns.
You can upgrade the case without upgrading the motherboard. A mATX mobo will fit into most full-ATX cases as they usually have mounting holes for both.
Another option if you want to just put more drives into your existing PC is to get one of the Mediasonic 4-bay external enclosures:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
I've heard a few people suggest them around here. Has space for 4 drives, there is a hardware RAID version you can get, and it's got a cooling fan in it.
This way your PC would still be able to serve up the transcoding, where a NAS can be pretty expensive with generally not as much transcoding capabilities.
This is what I was looking at: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
They also have an 8 bay version: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG
you can always look into something like this
I see. How about usb drive cage like this: from amazon
I use two of these, works great
Just found this mentioned in another post, looks like it would do what you want: Mediasonic 4 bay JBOD enclosure
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5" SATA HDD Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA Support SATA 3 6.0Gbps HDD transfer speed https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf
This might help, I have one just for random stuff.
I have a 8300 Elite SFF with an i5-4570 and it works wonders for my usage. I just maxed out the RAM modules and added a DAS box like this one to expand storage.
You could buy a box like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_ls5YAb18GHSKT and add drives as yours fill up. Buy the biggest you can afford at the time you get one. Eventually, you will use the space.
Haha that's actually a Synology. What was so bad about the WD EX2? The little enclosure next to it is just for external disks (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1).
With a little DIYing, you could save a bundle (and get a lot more flexibility) with a 4 disk USB3 DAS attached to an Intel NUC running FreeNAS:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-NUC5CPYH-Graphics-2-5-Inch-BOXNUC5CPYH/dp/B00XPVRR5M
The only downside is that you're going to have a ~100MB/s cap due to the USB3 connection (the specced 5Gbps is a lie). But if you're serving the data over Gigabit Ethernet, then that's going to be your limit anyway.
I've used https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ before. Not perfect, it uses USB or a single ESATA to connect all the drives. Honestly, I'm not sure how that'll work with your needs, but it's a relatively easy option for expansion. Honestly, at the level you're looking at I'd consider an separate server. I'm not saying you need a huge ZFS build on a 24 bay system, but a build in a PC would let you go up to 6 drives pretty easily (and more with careful selection of your hardware) and cheaply while also offloading all your Plex activity onto another computer.
A craigslist PC for <$200 should meet most of your needs and you can fit the drives internal. Fitting 5 drives (1 OS and 4 content drives) should be easy in about any case. Though you can also use something like https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994205 to fit drives into a case without the drive bays built in (This one uses dedicated SATA ports to each drive)
However, once you're at your level of storage, I would recommend at least considering redundancy. Your data may be replaceable but how much time would it take to rebuild your library? It might be worth setting up a proper raid or ZFS implementation. This can be done in that craigslist PC I suggested, just get a few extra drives, install Ubuntu (my choice) or freenas and use ZFS. This will require some learning, but will save you a LOT of trouble later.
I myself am running 48 drives in ZFS on dedicated server hardware, but I've built up to this from your position all the way through each of these items I've talked about.
My last word: Don't underestimate the time it'll take you to recover from data loss, even with backups or good DVD ripping equipment, you'll waste a LOT of time rebuilding your collection. The cost of an extra drive and the time to learn/administer will QUICKLY pay back dividends with your first hardware problems.
Besides the price, what would be the difference between this and this?
I have the 8bay version of this 4-bay external and I was pretty happy with it (until I got my DS4243's). eSATAII might be 6gb/sec, or even the USB3 will work if you aren't doing raid.
Or, any reason a simple docking bay wouldn't suffice? I have one of these also and it works as well as can be expected.
A Synology is basically a small computer. If you have a computer that is running 24/7, a Synology isn't necessary as your computer can already act as a "server".
A DAS is a direct attached storage. For example, your easystores were (rip) 1 drive DASes. What I did was I got one of these and then filled it up with drives. It's not the best solution, but it is an efficient solution.
If you have everything important backed up and can re-get your movies and media, I personally might skip trying to do a recovery and send them in for warranty replacements. As long as your don't paint your hands red you should be able to get new ones. If you rip off the drive lid trying to fix your platter you will likely void your warranty... if they check that is...
And to prevent this from happening in the future... (Source)
edit: Easystores have a 2 year warranty.
something like this? (can also grab the manufacture refurb for $20 cheaper)
Have you looked into JBOD cases?
As others have mentioned, everything has extra features these days.
What you are looking for is this sort of stuff, https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
I run my plex server on a dedicated laptop without any major issues. As already mentioned by others, occasionally updates are installed that reboot the machine and my external drives do not re-mount. This is pretty rare and not a big deal for me to go remount the drives. Make sure to store it in a well ventilated area, as laptops tend to get hot.
As far as external storage goes, I would recommend investing in a DAS, I use this one. This gives you external storage, but also allows you to buy a bare hard drive like WD Red's.
Would something like this work, plugged in to the USB 3.0 port?
Mediasonic Probox is what you're thinking of I believe. Had one for a couple of years and it's been great! There is also a version with built in RAID if needed.
just buy this
No, not worth it. If you are going to look into servers, start hunting ebay for used Dell r710 / r610 / r510 servers. You might be able to find one for ~$200, and it will be soooo much better.
You really want to be looking at xeon 5600 series CPUs, or newer... Here's a comparison with the xeon e5645 I have in my server, to the 5160 in that server:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-E5645-vs-Intel-Xeon-5160
Really, the i5 should be great for plex, what else are you running on it? Does it have USB 3? If so, maybe you could just look at something like this instead:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
It appears to be a 4 drive enclosure that can connect via USB 3 to your PC, for $99
I am going to be using the Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5" SATA HDD Enclosure. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=crt_ewc_img_dp_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2WSTUX2A6RQ1A
A multi drive enclosure should work, something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
Just make sure it uses USB 3.0/3.1
No but for $30 more I'd rather have a full enclosure though it's only 4 bays
Simple cheap, good airflow, stay away from the esata port http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1448465731&sr=8-2&keywords=mediasonic+probox
heres my plan
one of these external enclosures
and four of these 8 terabyte hard drives (one at a time) hooked up to my laptop (soon to be desktop when i upgrade)
This: http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
Plus 4x 6tb hdd
StorageLife
I have one of these, going on 2 years now. http://smile.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1438012463&sr=8-2&keywords=mediasonic
It has a good fan, its tray-less, esata and usb 3.0. the blue LEDs are alittle bright for my taste.
They also have an 8 Bay model. http://smile.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1438012463&sr=8-4&keywords=mediasonic
If you aren't looking to get too fancy you could go for a cheap external drive enclosure.
You're basically just adding slots for more drives to your existing computer. It works great over USB 3.0 but to get the full speed out of your drives you'll need to pick up an esata adapter as well.
For this test it's listed at the top of a chart. It's the AMD 990FX chipset's SATA controller.
(AMD supports port multiplication, intel does not.).
eSATA==SATA electrically, so there's no difference if you're not port multiplying.
> I am also looking for an esata enclusure but I don't care about noise or spin-down.
I've noticed some cheap ones on CL and whatnot. You do want 6Gb/s SATA though to the enclosure for speed reasons.
This is the enclosure the tests were run on: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4
It will do spin down if commanded from the computer's OS, it will sleep or turn off (depending on your setting) if the host machine turns off.
eSATA works great, but USB 3.0 does not have UASP.
Here's a cheaper one if you're looking to use it for swapping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817576013
There were also a bunch of sans digital towerraid 4-bays in the 60-70 range, but I don't see them right now.
It's 1U, so I have it right now sideways between a bookcase and the wall with some padding between the wall and it so it's straight up instead of leaning a bit to the wall because of the... molding? (Sorry... no idea how it's called in english...)
I plan on building something like this, 1, 2 to keep it standing.
I bought one server to test. It's working great and I may get a second one at some point.
The reason I bought it is because my wife is doing her PhD and needs some computing power. While they provide enough where she's attending, they limit the IO, so when dealing with big datasets... that's an issue.
I don't think I'll get more than two (but it's tempting). If at some point she needs to do bigger things, it may be better to automate the process of providing a droplet at digital ocean, doing a git pull, running whatever she needs to, transferring the results back and destroying the droplet.
I have this, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/
I plan on plugging it directly to it (right now it's over the network), so I need to get an esata or USB 3 adapter so I can connect it. That has a ZFS RAIDZ2 volume on it with 4x3TB drives
EDIT
In regards to how it's working. It's great. It performs great and all the VMs have more than enough power. It's a louder than I thought, so at some point I may build a case or something and stick it in the closet with the suitcases.
So you're looking for something like this:
Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 4 Bay 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA
This will hold 4 drives, and you cans setup a RAID to have some redundancy. link
I am running this little guy connected to my TV Shows box which already has 12x 3TB drives in it. I am using it to expand as well as upgrade my drive pool
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I was going to use some of my easystore 8tb drives, so it looks like it won't make a difference based on what you said. :) Since I use these for Plex, I think I should be fine with the USB 3.0/esata version like I already have. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Something like this?
or this?
Thanks, any particular ones you'd recommend?
You mean something like this, right? https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4
and then this for the card? https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-PEXESAT32-Express-eSATA-Controller/dp/B003GSGMPU/
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