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Raid 1 capable External drive/enclosure (need recc's)...

M

munckee

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 27, 2005
1,219
1
I'm looking to purchase or put together a Raid 1 external drive. Ideally in the 1.5-2TB range, ideally with USB 2 and FW800. Ideally in the $300 range.

Anyone have recommendations on where to look? So far I'm having a little trouble finding anything that fits the bill, though I'm hoping maybe to score a black friday deal...
 
Raid 1 is mirrored to so get 1.5-2 TB you will need either four 1TB drives or two 1.5TB drives. 1.5TB are not really ready to the masses yet so I would stay away from them, either way it's above your budget. I setup a 1TB raid 1 last night, I purchased two 1TB drives for around $100 each and two external enclosures that daisy chain with firewire. Works great and cost $260 for 1TB of mirrored data. My plan is to get another setup like this in a few months.
 
detz said:
Raid 1 is mirrored to so get 1.5-2 TB you will need either four 1TB drives or two 1.5TB drives. 1.5TB are not really ready to the masses yet so I would stay away from them, either way it's above your budget. I setup a 1TB raid 1 last night, I purchased two 1TB drives for around $100 each and two external enclosures that daisy chain with firewire. Works great and cost $260 for 1TB of mirrored data. My plan is to get another setup like this in a few months.
Click to expand...

No, I want 750GB-1TB total (so two drives each that size). I'd really like to find a hardware raid solution, so two separate enclosures wouldn't work.
 
I got this enclosure from OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL2K/

It's $120 which leave $90 for each harddrive. Easy to fing 750GB drives for that but a 1TB drive will run about $100/ea so 2TB total would put you a little over

I have had mine running with 2x1TB for about a month and have had no problems. I'm using RAID 0 because I'm streaming a lot of video from it, but but it would just take a single jumper change to make it RAID 1 like you want.
 
mpshay said:
I got this enclosure from OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL2K/

It's $120 which leave $90 for each harddrive. Easy to fing 750GB drives for that but a 1TB drive will run about $100/ea so 2TB total would put you a little over

I have had mine running with 2x1TB for about a month and have had no problems. I'm using RAID 0 because I'm streaming a lot of video from it, but but it would just take a single jumper change to make it RAID 1 like you want.
Click to expand...

I was looking at that one, but was put off because it didn't note RAID1 capability. You're sure its just a simple jumper change?

EDIT: Looks like the jumper will set it to SPAN vs. STRIPE, but not to mirror.
 
I just got the Guardian Maximus yesterday:

http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php

It has hardware RAID-1 built in. I threw in 2 1 TB drives and it's working like a charm. A friend of mine recommended it to me as he has had one and says it's a breeze if one drive ever fails as you can just replace it and the enclosure takes care of rebuilding everything.

It's a little pricey, but I feel the protection you get is well worth it. Good luck with your decision!
 
mark2288 said:
I just got the Guardian Maximus yesterday:

http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php

It has hardware RAID-1 built in. I threw in 2 1 TB drives and it's working like a charm. A friend of mine recommended it to me as he has had one and says it's a breeze if one drive ever fails as you can just replace it and the enclosure takes care of rebuilding everything.

It's a little pricey, but I feel the protection you get is well worth it. Good luck with your decision!
Click to expand...


Thanks Mark. I don't know that I really need "up to the minute" backups (once a day is fine with me), but I'll keep it in mind. Doesn't look like its too much more expensive and I like the idea that the enclosure will rebuild a new drive. Do most do that, or just this one?
 
munckee said:
I was looking at that one, but was put off because it didn't note RAID1 capability. You're sure its just a simple jumper change?

EDIT: Looks like the jumper will set it to SPAN vs. STRIPE, but not to mirror.
Click to expand...
I have this exact setup. The OWC external enclosure, plus two Seagate 7200.11 1TB drives. Removed all the jumpers, to get JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks, so you'll just see two separate drives). Then, I opened Disk Utility and made a RAID1 setup. Really easy. I set it all up on my iMac and tested it on my MacBook, to see if the setup would be recognized on another computer than the one used to set it up. And yes, it was recognized.

Conclusion: software RAID1 works like a charm. Really easy to set up, plus it's a more versatile setup than the Maximus Guardian, as that enclosure can only be used in a RAID1 setup. The Mercury Elite-AL enclosure, on the other hand, can also be used to make RAID0 and SPAN setups. Plus, it's cheaper. Build quality of the enclosure is outstanding, by the way. And it looks awesome, next to any Mac. In fact, it looks awesome. Period.
 
Anyone found any good black friday deals (preferably online) for RAID drives?
 
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