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View Full Version : Two HD RAID enclosure w/option of using only 1 drive ?



dnadrifter
Jun 3, 2009, 10:22 PM
Does any one know of a two hard drive enclosure that will house two drives capable of setting the drives up in a RAID 0, BUT also let you only put one drive in one of the slots if you want (non RAID).

I am looking for an external backup solution. Ideally I would just by a two drive RAID enclosure from macsales and then buy two 1TB drives. However, I don't really need 2TB of backup right now, but I likely will in a couple years. I would like to find an enclosure that would support both a single drive and a two drive RAID 0 setup, so I can grow into it without laying out the cash now.


sammich
Jun 3, 2009, 10:26 PM
From a sample drive description:
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro "Quad" eSATA / FireWire 800/400 + USB2 Hardware RAID Dual-Drive Enclosure Kit for up to Two SATA Hard Disk Drives. Oxford 936 chipset. All cables included. Supports up to 2 x 2TB Drives! 1 Year Warranty. (OWCMEFW936AL2)

I guess this means you can put in one, and another one for later.
dr. shdw
Jun 3, 2009, 10:31 PM
I think these can..

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW934AL2/

But you'll need to reformat to do RAID 0 in the future...
dnadrifter
Jun 4, 2009, 02:07 AM
From a sample drive description:


I guess this means you can put in one, and another one for later.

I think these can..

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW934AL2/

But you'll need to reformat to do RAID 0 in the future...

That was actually the enclosure I was planning on purchasing. When I called OWC though they said you had to have two in at the same time. You didn't have to have them configured as a RAID, but you both slots needed to be occupied.

I was also optimistic that the description said up to 2, but I guess it could be read as up to two 2TB drives rather than say two 1 TB drives, etc.

I asked the tech support guy several times and he was fairly adamant that both drives needed to be there.
geoffreak
Jun 4, 2009, 08:43 AM
Drobo does this. Can hold up to four drives. Just pop in drives to add storage without formatting.
dr. shdw
Jun 4, 2009, 09:58 AM
Drobo does this. Can hold up to four drives. Just pop in drives to add storage without formatting.

Drobo is slow though..
nanofrog
Jun 4, 2009, 10:39 AM
Drobo is slow though..
You might want to look into ATA over Ethernet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATA_over_Ethernet) (AoE). ;)