HDD Multiple External Enclosure

[locksmack]

Hey Guys,

Long story short, my cat destroyed my 4 year old Windows Home Server (I'm guessing failure of boot HDD, though not 100% sure).

So I am taking this chance to upgrade to a 2012 Mac Mini with data disks in an external enclosure. I am after one that will house 4 drives.

I doubt I will ever RAID my drives, but if there is an enclosure that gives the option for not too much more cost, I may consider it. I will probably be connecting with USB3, but again if there is an enclosure that supports Thunderbolt for not too much more, I may consider it too.

Any suggestions? So far I have been eyeing off the Hotway HF2-SU3S2.

Cheers.

 

[blueroom]

Would a 4 bay Synology NAS work for you?

 

[opinio]

Hey Guys,

Long story short, my cat destroyed my 4 year old Windows Home Server (I'm guessing failure of boot HDD, though not 100% sure).

So I am taking this chance to upgrade to a 2012 Mac Mini with data disks in an external enclosure. I am after one that will house 4 drives.

I doubt I will ever RAID my drives, but if there is an enclosure that gives the option for not too much more cost, I may consider it. I will probably be connecting with USB3, but again if there is an enclosure that supports Thunderbolt for not too much more, I may consider it too.

Any suggestions? So far I have been eyeing off the Hotway HF2-SU3S2.

Cheers.

If you have the money... Drobo 5D

 

[Santabean2000]

Hey Guys,

Long story short, my cat destroyed my 4 year old Windows Home Server (I'm guessing failure of boot HDD, though not 100% sure).

So I am taking this chance to upgrade to a 2012 Mac Mini with data disks in an external enclosure. I am after one that will house 4 drives.

I doubt I will ever RAID my drives, but if there is an enclosure that gives the option for not too much more cost, I may consider it. I will probably be connecting with USB3, but again if there is an enclosure that supports Thunderbolt for not too much more, I may consider it too.

Any suggestions? So far I have been eyeing off the Hotway HF2-SU3S2.

Cheers.

Pegasus J4. Done.

 

[elefantrider]

J4 gets my vote also.

It is quieter and cheaper than the Drobo, although I do like the click in drive enclosure on the Drobo.

 

[jg321]

Long story short, my cat destroyed my 4 year old Windows Home Server

I still wanna know what the cat did!

 

[flynz4]

Would a 4 bay Synology NAS work for you?

With a new mini server... it seems intuitive that a DAS would be better suited. At first order, the Mac Mini Server can provide all of the services of a NAS (plus more), and a DAS provides significant higher performance overall.

A NAS does have advantages in some cases... but for a server, I think DAS almost always wins.

I would second looking at the J4. It seems like a nice solution.

/Jim

 

[Giuly]

The Pegasus J4 is nice, but it takes 2.5" drives. If it only takes 9.5mm high drives, you're limited to 4TB (if you don't wait for the brand-sparklin' new 1.5TB 7200RPM 9.5mm HGST drive later this month).

Given that you were interested in the HF-SU3S2, you should know that it's technically nothing more than four enclosures and an USB hub in a single enclosure. However, there's also the HFR2-SU3S2, which additionally supports RAID 0/1/3/5/10 and might be worth considering over the bare-bones HF-SU3S2. Other than that it's the same thing.