multi-drive enclosure for external SSDs on a 2021 MacBook Pro

[LeslieF]

Hello, Thank you all for all the help you've provided me in reading these forums for many years!
I just purchased a 2021 16" MacBook Pro and am looking a way to connect external hard drives. I have 2 2.5" SSDs drives coming out of an old Mac Pro 2010 (cheese grater) and am looking for an enclosure for them that will hold both. One is a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB and the other is a Crucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD. I also have 2-1 TB spinning drives. Is there an enclosure that will accommodate all 4 or should I just get separate enclosures and stack them? I also have a 4TB Seagate backup and hub that I'll want to attach. I see the Thunderbay 4 but $519 but that seems really steep.

 

[LeslieF]

Is the key to look for USB-C connections like this one?
Mercury Elite Pro Quad RAID4-Bay Storage Enclosure

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad RAID 5 Four-Bay Enclosure

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad RAID 5 Four-Bay External Storage Enclosure. Featuring SoftRAID XT. Add your own drives! USB-C and USB-A cables included.

eshop.macsales.com

 

[Fishrrman]

"I also have 2-1 TB spinning drives"

Are these 2.5" size?
Or... are they 3.5" size?

By the way... sounds like you DO NOT WANT "RAID" for these.
Rather, you want "JBOD" -- "just bunch of disks" -- with each drive remaining accessible as a "standalone" volume...

 

[BrianBaughn]

This is an issue I'll be facing at some point in the future…when I move to Apple Silicon. My mix of JBOD SSDs and 3.5" spinners currently reside in my hackintosh tower and in external housings and a $300 housing for four of them doesn't appeal to me.

 

[LeslieF]

"I also have 2-1 TB spinning drives"

Are these 2.5" size?
Or... are they 3.5" size?

By the way... sounds like you DO NOT WANT "RAID" for these.
Rather, you want "JBOD" -- "just bunch of disks" -- with each drive remaining accessible as a "standalone" volume...

Sorry, meant to say the spinning drives are 3.5”. Correct, I don’t want raid. I want JBOD. It would also be nice to be able to boot off an external disk.

 

[justashooter]

Hello, Thank you all for all the help you've provided me in reading these forums for many years!
I just purchased a 2021 16" MacBook Pro and am looking a way to connect external hard drives. I have 2 2.5" SSDs drives coming out of an old Mac Pro 2010 (cheese grater) and am looking for an enclosure for them that will hold both. One is a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB and the other is a Crucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD. I also have 2-1 TB spinning drives. Is there an enclosure that will accommodate all 4 or should I just get separate enclosures and stack them? I also have a 4TB Seagate backup and hub that I'll want to attach. I see the Thunderbay 4 but $519 but that seems really steep.

I would not put the four drives in one enclosures, even though you could, putting the two ssd's in their own enclosure gives you a small external enclosure to take with you if needed. This is what I would do, and yes OWC gear is somewhat more expensive than others, but these are pretty good prices.

You can put the 2 2.5" SSD's in this:

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini

Packing dual-drive, USB 3.1 Gen 2 performance into a portable, bus-powered form factor, this is the perfect drive for high demand applications on the go.

eshop.macsales.com

It runs $75, supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 and RAID 0, 1, SPAN, and Independent drive mode.

Put the 2 spinning drives in this:

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual for Mac USB 3.1 Gen 1

The best dual-drive hardware RAID solution for creative workflows, project archives, and system backups where reliability and versatile performance count.

eshop.macsales.com

It runs $99, supports USB 3.1 Gen 1 (your spinning drives won't come close to the Gen 1 speed) and RAID 0, 1, SPAN, and Independent drive mode.

 

[Fishrrman]

For the 2.5" drives, this would work:

MiniPro RAID V3 USB-C Dual Bay

Check out the deal on MiniPro RAID V3 USB-C Dual Bay at Oyen Digital

oyendigital.com

(it supports JBOD)

For the 3.5" drives, this would work:

Mobius Pro 2C 2-Bay USB-C External Drive Array

Check out the deal on Mobius Pro 2C 2-Bay USB-C External Drive Array at Oyen Digital

oyendigital.com

(also supports JBOD)

I have a single-bay OyenDigital 2.5" enclosure, that's built like a tank and has never given me a problem.