Just a few first impressions of this enclosure which I've filled with a 4TB Toshiba N300 (7200rpm) and a 2,5" Samsung 860 EVO (using an OWC Multi-Mount).
Build quality is good, rock solid actually. The design is nice too, very Cheesegraterish. There are great little rubber feet underneath. I like that both eSATA and USB cables are included. The internal power and SATA cables are stiff though. With an HDD and an SSD there was barely enough space for them, but with two HDDs I'd imagine it could be tight.
Transfer speeds over eSATA from my cMP 3,1 via a CalDigit FASTA 6GU3 Pro are better than expected. I realise there are lightning fast drives these days but for me it's quick when a 2GB video file transfers in 13 secs.
Oddly (perhaps?) I had the same transfer speed of that 2GB file to the HDD and to the SSD. I only have Blackmagic Speed Test on my machine and it reports write 270-300 MB/s, read 470MB/s for the EVO. For the Toshiba read and write are both around 170MB/s. Sys Info reports Link Speed at 6 Gigabit for both controllers. No idea what's going on there, but still 13 secs is fine by me.
It's a rather noisy enclosure. I hadn't expected to hear the HDD so much but it's as if the drive heads are attached to my desk, ticking clearly (but only) when the drive is active. I actually don't mind that too much because I'm too much of a geek. But the fan noise is more annoying because it is a constant companion to my cMP's fans. My cMP runs cool with fans at about base rpm all the time; they almost never rev up. But the slightly higher pitch of the enclosure's whirr makes it stand out against the cMP's fans.
I have read of people switching out the fan for a Noctua model. Could anyone share if that improves the situation?
I considered other options before buying this model. The reason I bought it was to have the ability to boot off eSATA and have a bit of that Mac aesthetic (it's ok, call me vain). For someone with an older machine I'd say it's a good enclosure overall. That said, I must admit that I am in two minds about whether to keep it. There are 4-bay enclosures from Icy Box and Fantec which have eSATA and cost perhaps only 30-40% more. While they don't have the Mac Pro look alike design, they do offer more for the money. They are perhaps also quieter — does anyone know?
Cheers
Philip
Build quality is good, rock solid actually. The design is nice too, very Cheesegraterish. There are great little rubber feet underneath. I like that both eSATA and USB cables are included. The internal power and SATA cables are stiff though. With an HDD and an SSD there was barely enough space for them, but with two HDDs I'd imagine it could be tight.
Transfer speeds over eSATA from my cMP 3,1 via a CalDigit FASTA 6GU3 Pro are better than expected. I realise there are lightning fast drives these days but for me it's quick when a 2GB video file transfers in 13 secs.
Oddly (perhaps?) I had the same transfer speed of that 2GB file to the HDD and to the SSD. I only have Blackmagic Speed Test on my machine and it reports write 270-300 MB/s, read 470MB/s for the EVO. For the Toshiba read and write are both around 170MB/s. Sys Info reports Link Speed at 6 Gigabit for both controllers. No idea what's going on there, but still 13 secs is fine by me.
It's a rather noisy enclosure. I hadn't expected to hear the HDD so much but it's as if the drive heads are attached to my desk, ticking clearly (but only) when the drive is active. I actually don't mind that too much because I'm too much of a geek. But the fan noise is more annoying because it is a constant companion to my cMP's fans. My cMP runs cool with fans at about base rpm all the time; they almost never rev up. But the slightly higher pitch of the enclosure's whirr makes it stand out against the cMP's fans.
I have read of people switching out the fan for a Noctua model. Could anyone share if that improves the situation?
I considered other options before buying this model. The reason I bought it was to have the ability to boot off eSATA and have a bit of that Mac aesthetic (it's ok, call me vain). For someone with an older machine I'd say it's a good enclosure overall. That said, I must admit that I am in two minds about whether to keep it. There are 4-bay enclosures from Icy Box and Fantec which have eSATA and cost perhaps only 30-40% more. While they don't have the Mac Pro look alike design, they do offer more for the money. They are perhaps also quieter — does anyone know?
Cheers
Philip
