USB 3.0 External RAID Recommendations?

[Sunshine1868]

I will be moving soon and the apartment to which I am moving requires I pay for electricity. As a result, I won't be bringing along my HP ProLiant server (because: power hog).

As a result, I need to sort out an external storage solution with the following abilities:

-RAID 1 Capable

-USB 3.0 Connectivity (with external power)

-User-Replacable Disks (preferably hot-swappable, but not necessary)

I've been looking around for a while on the Fry's Electronics website (they are close to home) and haven't really found my "Goldilocks Solution"

Any help is welcome, Thanks!

 

[Altecice]

Two USB 3.0 external HDD's. Use Windows Disk Management to do a mirrored volume on them both (software RAID 1).

[Sunshine1868]

I considered that, but I don't necessarily trust off the shelf external drives (just had one fail, hence my aversion to just buying two external drives)

Plus, I am on a Mac and I am not sure how well OS X will do rebuilding the array with a new drive... any other ideas?

[michrech]

If you want to go the DIY route (what I did), you could always do this:

 

http://amzn.com/B00PZ7347E

 

It's an USB3 / eSATA port multiplier (the kind of interface you'd find in many of the 2/4+ bay eSATA HDD enclosures).  Supports several RAID modes, including RAID1.  I've never worked with this particular card (nor any of these multipliers that support RAID), so I don't know if it's all done with dip switches, or if there is some configuration software involved.

 

If you want something pre-built, you can always go after something like this:

 

http://amzn.com/B003X26VV4

Several manufacturers make these.  I have no experience with any of them.

 

---

 

What I did was take a standard mid-ATX case that had several internal 3.5" and 4 5.25" bays.  I put a 4-in-3 hot-swap bay into three of the 5.25" bays, and a single 3.5" to 5.25" hot swap tray in the last 5.25" bay.  I populated the units with 5 1TB HDD's, then connected them all to this:

 

http://amzn.com/B000VEMNAU

 

...since I didn't need / want RAID (I'm using DrivePool for Drobo-like functionality).  I put in a decent 400w power supply (overkill for powering that board, a couple 120mm fans, and the 5 drives).  I connected it to an ASMedia eSATA controller that's passed through to my storage / media serving VM.  

 

I will be moving soon and the apartment to which I am moving requires I pay for electricity. As a result, I won't be bringing along my HP ProLiant server (because: power hog).

As a result, I need to sort out an external storage solution with the following abilities:

-RAID 1 Capable

-USB 3.0 Connectivity (with external power)

-User-Replacable Disks (preferably hot-swappable, but not necessary)

I've been looking around for a while on the Fry's Electronics website (they are close to home) and haven't really found my "Goldilocks Solution"

Any help is welcome, Thanks!

[Sunshine1868]

I was thinking more along the lines of enclosure suggestions

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Sunshine1868,

 

I could suggest that you check out WD My Book Duo. It's a good DAS with two drive slots and works pretty good: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yQKFtV

Have you considered a NAS solution for your local storage? 

Feel free to ask if you happen to ahve any questions

 

Captain_WD.

[michrech]

There are lots of external USB enclosures that support RAID0/1 -- you can find a ton of them on Amazon (one of the links I provided is for such a product)...  

Does it need to be USB, though?  Would a 4/5 bay NAS chassis (so you can provide your own disks) work for your situation?

 

 

I was thinking more along the lines of enclosure suggestions

[Sunshine1868]

Figured out my plan, thanks guys!