Back Story...
So I have lately had the worst luck in the world...
About a month ago, I accidentally deleted a years worth of my pictures (I am a photographer) because of the difference between Windows and OS X when it comes to overwriting existing folders... Fortuantely, I was able to recover most everything and it opened by eyes (nice and wide!) to the fact that I had no backup for that external drive.
So I decided to buy this enclosure from OWC... So I put my 1TB drive with data along with a new 1.5TB drive (for backing up the 1TB and the 500GB drive in my laptop)...
Turns out, that enclosure has hardware in it that automatically creates a RAID array, which was never stated in the manual or anywhere... And it corrupted my partition map. Just my flippin luck!
It looks like I might once again be able to recover everything, though I will have 53,000 files (650+GB) with no file names. Suck.
As an aside, OWC refuses to care that their array screwed everything up, that their documentation does not state what this enclosure does. Awesome. Now I have to pay to ship it back to them and in order to avoid paying a restocking fee too, I have to take in-store credit. Sticking with Newegg from now on.
Important stuff starts here!
So that brings me here... I need to get an enclosure that is not a hardware RAID enclosure, which apparently are pretty hard to come by. I need it to have eSATA (bought an ExpressCard eSATA adapter), any other output is vanilla.
I am leaning towards these two:
Stardom ST6600
and
Sans Digital TowerRAID TR5MB
Yes, they are both 5 bay enclosures, I only plan on using two... this way there is room to grow
. I'm looking at these because they don't have hardware RAID and are only modestly more expensive than a two-bay setup.
Anyone used these two enclosures? One better than the other? I am leaning towards the second drive because it has a larger, theoretically quieter, fan. I can't afford to go to a FirmTek enclosure as they are over $500 for the enclosure alone. Don't mention the Drobo, not going to happen.
I am also open to other options.. Lay it on me!
Thanks,
- KS
PS- if you read the whole post, kudos!
So I have lately had the worst luck in the world...
About a month ago, I accidentally deleted a years worth of my pictures (I am a photographer) because of the difference between Windows and OS X when it comes to overwriting existing folders... Fortuantely, I was able to recover most everything and it opened by eyes (nice and wide!) to the fact that I had no backup for that external drive.
So I decided to buy this enclosure from OWC... So I put my 1TB drive with data along with a new 1.5TB drive (for backing up the 1TB and the 500GB drive in my laptop)...
Turns out, that enclosure has hardware in it that automatically creates a RAID array, which was never stated in the manual or anywhere... And it corrupted my partition map. Just my flippin luck!
It looks like I might once again be able to recover everything, though I will have 53,000 files (650+GB) with no file names. Suck.
As an aside, OWC refuses to care that their array screwed everything up, that their documentation does not state what this enclosure does. Awesome. Now I have to pay to ship it back to them and in order to avoid paying a restocking fee too, I have to take in-store credit. Sticking with Newegg from now on.
Important stuff starts here!
So that brings me here... I need to get an enclosure that is not a hardware RAID enclosure, which apparently are pretty hard to come by. I need it to have eSATA (bought an ExpressCard eSATA adapter), any other output is vanilla.
I am leaning towards these two:
Stardom ST6600
and
Sans Digital TowerRAID TR5MB
Yes, they are both 5 bay enclosures, I only plan on using two... this way there is room to grow
. I'm looking at these because they don't have hardware RAID and are only modestly more expensive than a two-bay setup. Anyone used these two enclosures? One better than the other? I am leaning towards the second drive because it has a larger, theoretically quieter, fan. I can't afford to go to a FirmTek enclosure as they are over $500 for the enclosure alone. Don't mention the Drobo, not going to happen
. I am also open to other options.. Lay it on me!
Thanks,
- KS
PS- if you read the whole post, kudos!