Portable raid

Hey there No-Me,

WD My Passport Pro is indeed a good portable RAID solution.
I could suggest checking a couple of more Thunderbolt RAID solutions. They are not as compact as the My Passport but are still portable/movable, work great and support RAID0, RAID1 and JBOD.
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=630#Tab3 (this drive is formatted for Mac, with RAID0 it can reach up to 300MB/s, works at 10 Gb/s and you have the opportunity to swap the drives in case either of them fail).
WD My Book VelociRaptor Duo: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=860#Tab3 (has the same features as the Thunderbolt Duo but comes with 2 10,000 rpm WD VelociRaptor drives, boosting speed even more).

You can always get a 2-bay enclosure, put 2 similar drives and configure them in RAID if you don't want to use a preconfigured and prebuilt device.
Do have in mind that RAID (even Mirror types of RAID) is not a backup itself. It only offers redundancy if it's the only place you store that data. I would suggest backing up that data elsewhere if you are using those portable drives as main drives and not as a backup.

You could always go for a NAS solution.

Hope this helps,

Captain_WD.

 

Well, in that case, My Passport Pro would be the choice from the Western Digital line of products.
Have you considered portable single SSD in an enclosure? They are much less likely to fail due to physical damage (shaking, droping, vibrations, etc.), work much faster than regular HDDs and since you have everything backed up on the NAS, you won't have to worry about your data. Static electricity would be the only thing you should be worried about.

Captain_WD.

 

That's strange :/

Have you tried those SSDs internally to see if the problem persists? Maybe the problem is in the enclosure itself? If they are faulty, maybe you can go for a RMA.

Captain_WD.

 

How about the Pegasus2 M4?

http://www.promise.com/promotion_page/promotion_page.aspx?region=en-global&rsn=101

Portable, thunderbolt connected and hardware RAID.

 

Since you are pretty much looking at SSD or 2.5" laptop drives, you ought to consider for the former that TRIM might not work with USB3. This leaves Thunderbolt as the only option. If there is anyone out there who can refute this reference to USB3 external SSD drives not being TRIM-able, please do. It would be excellent if this hurdle could be avoided.

The Pegasus J4 might be worth investigating and though it costs more than the DROBO...they seem to have a popular following.

You should also investigate whether these external drives require external power via AC or battery or from your source (computer).