I need a good 4 bay RAID 5 enclosure...

[Macshroomer]

I just got done jumping through all kinds of hoops to get an OWC QX2 working decent using eSata on my 5,1 with 4 x 8TB enterprise drives and it is absolute junk. It would not at all mount in JBOD, any time I remount RAID 5 shows a corrupted disk in slot B even after I move the drive to another slot were it is fine and even go as far as to format and verify it on it's own via a Voyager. And the transfer rates are downright horrible, 80Mbs write 120 Mbs read on freaking RAID-5! Luckily I have not put data on it and have just done tests.

I have the same 4 8TB enterprise drives in my Mac Pro in RAID-5 via Softraid and they are more like 380Ms write / 430Mbs read. My eSATA PCie card is fine too, great speeds on USB3 and eSATA with other drives.

Can someone suggest a good 4 drive enclosure that could do RAID-5, hardware or via Softraid via eSATA? With all the bad reviews on B&H I saw ( nothing but glowing on OWC ) I really just want to get rid of this thing before it completely destroys $1,500 worth of enterprise drives.

 

[buster84]

I just got done jumping through all kinds of hoops to get an OWC QX2 working decent using eSata on my 5,1 with 4 x 8TB enterprise drives and it is absolute junk. It would not at all mount in JBOD, any time I remount RAID 5 shows a corrupted disk in slot B even after I move the drive to another slot were it is fine and even go as far as to format and verify it on it's own via a Voyager. And the transfer rates are downright horrible, 80Mbs write 120 Mbs read on freaking RAID-5! Luckily I have not put data on it and have just done tests.

I have the same 4 8TB enterprise drives in my Mac Pro in RAID-5 via Softraid and they are more like 380Ms write / 430Mbs read. My eSATA PCie card is fine too, great speeds on USB3 and eSATA with other drives.

Can someone suggest a good 4 drive enclosure that could do RAID-5, hardware or via Softraid via eSATA? With all the bad reviews on B&H I saw ( nothing but glowing on OWC ) I really just want to get rid of this thing before it completely destroys $1,500 worth of enterprise drives.

You could do a cheap external 4 bay drive enclosure and use softraid software.

https://www.softraid.com

Or buy a network drive, like a readynas and use it on your network and as long as your able to hardwire it to your Mac through your gigabit eithernet ports (router must have them too) gigabit you'll get the full speed.

Another option is the Pegasus 4 drive thunderbolt enclosures.

http://www2.promise.com/storage/rai...b_m=sub_m_9&rsn1=40&rsn3=47&statistic=pegasus

 

[Macshroomer]

You could do a cheap external 4 bay drive enclosure and use softraid software.

https://www.softraid.com

Or buy a network drive, like a readynas and use it on your network and as long as your able to hardwire it to your Mac through your gigabit eithernet ports (router must have them too) gigabit you'll get the full speed.

Another option is the Pegasus 4 drive thunderbolt enclosures.

http://www2.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-nable global&m=1039&sub_m=sub_m_9&rsn1=40&rsn3=47&statistic=pegasus

Pegasus 4 is not an option because I am unable to use thunderbolt. Not interested Ethernet at this point in time.

Cheap enclosure using Softraid....umm...yeah, that is what I asked, which one? I am already using Softraid on internals as stated above.

 

[isomorphic]

I have a Sans Digital TowerRAID four-drive enclosure that works really well. Full disclosure, I'm using it as JBOD with USB3. (I use it for bulk storage, so I don't need it to be fast/redundant; also all my Thunderbolt ports are full driving 4K monitors.) My model actually supports both eSATA and RAID-5, but USB 3 is more useful with Macs.

 

[matreya]

I've been using OWC Elite Qx2s for years without problems, but I've never tried to put huge hard drives in them...

RAID5 isn't recommended with larger capacity drives.

 

[Macshroomer]

I've been using OWC Elite Qx2s for years without problems, but I've never tried to put huge hard drives in them...

RAID5 isn't recommended with larger capacity drives.

Interesting considering that a lot of companies are offering large capacity RAID 5 externals including Lacie's new Big12 line and OWC in the QX2 and Thunderbay, up to 40TB in the latter.

Since I am not really getting a lot of input on other cases, I might just try another QX2.

One thing that might be a factor though is the fact I am using enterprise class AFD / 512e drives.

 

[hfg]

I have a QX2 with 4 ea. 3TB Seagate drives which has been reliable, although not the fastest drive system around (but for TimeMachine backup it is fine). I had a previous model as well which I updated to get the newer chipset for larger drives and USB 3.0 capability, although I use it as eSATA with a MacPro 5,1.

 

[Macshroomer]

I have a QX2 with 4 ea. 3TB Seagate drives which has been reliable, although not the fastest drive system around (but for TimeMachine backup it is fine). I had a previous model as well which I updated to get the newer chipset for larger drives and USB 3.0 capability, although I use it as eSATA with a MacPro 5,1.

Thanks, I have an RMA replacement on the way, I'll give it another try....

 

[FireWire2]

I just got done jumping through all kinds of hoops to get an OWC QX2 working decent using eSata on my 5,1 with 4 x 8TB enterprise drives and it is absolute junk. It would not at all mount in JBOD, any time I remount RAID 5 shows a corrupted disk in slot B even after I move the drive to another slot were it is fine and even go as far as to format and verify it on it's own via a Voyager. And the transfer rates are downright horrible, 80Mbs write 120 Mbs read on freaking RAID-5! Luckily I have not put data on it and have just done tests.

I have the same 4 8TB enterprise drives in my Mac Pro in RAID-5 via Softraid and they are more like 380Ms write / 430Mbs read. My eSATA PCie card is fine too, great speeds on USB3 and eSATA with other drives.

Can someone suggest a good 4 drive enclosure that could do RAID-5, hardware or via Softraid via eSATA? With all the bad reviews on B&H I saw ( nothing but glowing on OWC ) I really just want to get rid of this thing before it completely destroys $1,500 worth of enterprise drives.

Why not use a five drives stand-alone hardware raid
http://www.datoptic.com/ec/esata-usb3-0-hardware-raid-support-mac-windows-freebsd-linux.html

You can use the 5th slot as a hot spare to make your raid a bit more reliable

 

[TYancy]

I just got done jumping through all kinds of hoops to get an OWC QX2 working decent using eSata on my 5,1 with 4 x 8TB enterprise drives and it is absolute junk.

Did you work with OWC's tech support? I've used them for other devices and they were very knowledgable and willing to stick with it until the problem is resolved.
I love my QX2s. I've been using a pair of them for seven years (one for main, the other for backups). They are a breeze to set up and use. A couple of years ago when they came out with the version that supports USB3 I upgraded to the new model. My only other expense was a USB3 card, but that was very cheap. No issues.
The time has come for me to upgrade the system for my home office and I will be buying another pair of QX2s.

 

[Mikael H]

Interesting considering that a lot of companies are offering large capacity RAID 5 externals including Lacie's new Big12 line and OWC in the QX2 and Thunderbay, up to 40TB in the latter.

The issue with traditional RAID5 is rebuild time. There’s a disproportionate risk of another drive failing during a rebuild operation, and the risk increases the longer the rebuild takes. So yes, you CAN technically use RAID5 across a large number of huge drives, but it’s a bad idea if you care about your data.

Some manufacturers offer a more advanced storage system; often referred to as distributed RAID or DRAID, which greatly reduces rebuild times. This is sometimes erroneously called RAID5 or -6 since the underlying process is similar but it’s much more granular. DRAID is what you should be looking at if you want >20 TB raid sets. Or RAID10, if you have the money to spare.