[ale] USB disk enclosures?

[Leam Hall via Ale]

I've bought a couple Rosewill enclosures and usually things have gone
okay. Then one came with a noisy fan. I contacted Rosewill and offered
to make it easy, I'd replace the fan myself. Eventually they sent me a
replacement fan that didn't work at all. Contacted them again and they
said send them the enclosure, they'd look at it for 2-5 days, and if it
was their fault send me another.

Of course that means backups to that drive would be unavailable for 2-3
weeks. If their Customer Support had been supportive I'd stick with
them. It felt like they wanted me to be glad they answered the e-mails
within a couple days.

So I find myself looking for a new enclosure brand. Any suggestions? I
need something that can handle the 4-8 TB range WD Red 3.5 inch disks.

Leam
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[DJ-Pfulio via Ale]

So I find myself looking for a new enclosure brand. Any suggestions? I need
something that can handle the 4-8 TB range WD Red 3.5 inch disks.

Buy WD 8TB USB drives when they drop to $140 every few months on Slickdeals (via
BestBuy). They almost always come with an 8TB Red inside. The SD threads often
have specific model numbers to drive-inside mappings to limit the risk.

I tend to pull the HDDs from the WD enclosures - hate USB3 connections. But
there are definitely some great uses of external drives for many people.
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[Alex Carver via Ale]

I bought a Vantec enclosure a while ago but I think you're going to have
noisy enclosures no matter what unless you shell out for high end
multi-bay enclosures (which have bigger fans) or buy ball bearing fans
and replace them yourself. The low end enclosures use sleeve bearings
which wear out quickly given their size and the speed of small fans.

A quick check of DigiKey shows there are over 100 5-volt fans with ball
bearings in stock and they range in size from 25 mm to 120 mm. Ball
bearing fans tend to be thicker, though, so that may be an issue for
some enclosures.

Post by Leam Hall via Ale
I've bought a couple Rosewill enclosures and usually things have gone
okay. Then one came with a noisy fan. I contacted Rosewill and offered
to make it easy, I'd replace the fan myself. Eventually they sent me a
replacement fan that didn't work at all. Contacted them again and they
said send them the enclosure, they'd look at it for 2-5 days, and if it
was their fault send me another.
Of course that means backups to that drive would be unavailable for 2-3
weeks. If their Customer Support had been supportive I'd stick with
them. It felt like they wanted me to be glad they answered the e-mails
within a couple days.
So I find myself looking for a new enclosure brand. Any suggestions? I
need something that can handle the 4-8 TB range WD Red 3.5 inch disks.
Leam
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[Raj Wurttemberg via Ale]

I know USB enclosures are cheap but aside from cost... Would an inexpensive
maybe... 2-bay NAS (QNAP, Synology, etc...) be a viable option? I've been
installing the QNAP 2-bay TS-253A for some SMBs and they have been loving
them! They do nightly snapshot backups and I'm using the Real Time Remote
Replication (RTRR) feature for DR backups to my larger QNAP. It's a
completely automated process. I check on the backups and RTRR backup jobs
every now any then but that's about it.

/Raj

-----Original Message-----
From: Ale [mailto:ale-***@ale.org] On Behalf Of Leam Hall via Ale
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 5:00 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <***@ale.org>
Subject: [ale] USB disk enclosures?

I've bought a couple Rosewill enclosures and usually things have gone okay.
Then one came with a noisy fan. I contacted Rosewill and offered to make it
easy, I'd replace the fan myself. Eventually they sent me a replacement fan
that didn't work at all. Contacted them again and they said send them the
enclosure, they'd look at it for 2-5 days, and if it was their fault send me
another.

Of course that means backups to that drive would be unavailable for 2-3
weeks. If their Customer Support had been supportive I'd stick with them. It
felt like they wanted me to be glad they answered the e-mails within a
couple days.

So I find myself looking for a new enclosure brand. Any suggestions? I need
something that can handle the 4-8 TB range WD Red 3.5 inch disks.

Leam
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[Calvin Harrigan via Ale]

I've had mixed to poor luck with Rosewill.
Vantec has been much more reliable and stable in my experience.
They are only slightly more expensive.  I've had a couple Nexstar CXs
for several years now.  There is no active cooling.
The drives are attached directly to the aluminum case for heat dissipation.

Post by Raj Wurttemberg via Ale
I know USB enclosures are cheap but aside from cost... Would an inexpensive
maybe... 2-bay NAS (QNAP, Synology, etc...) be a viable option? I've been
installing the QNAP 2-bay TS-253A for some SMBs and they have been loving
them! They do nightly snapshot backups and I'm using the Real Time Remote
Replication (RTRR) feature for DR backups to my larger QNAP. It's a
completely automated process. I check on the backups and RTRR backup jobs
every now any then but that's about it.
/Raj
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 5:00 AM
Subject: [ale] USB disk enclosures?
I've bought a couple Rosewill enclosures and usually things have gone okay.
Then one came with a noisy fan. I contacted Rosewill and offered to make it
easy, I'd replace the fan myself. Eventually they sent me a replacement fan
that didn't work at all. Contacted them again and they said send them the
enclosure, they'd look at it for 2-5 days, and if it was their fault send me
another.
Of course that means backups to that drive would be unavailable for 2-3
weeks. If their Customer Support had been supportive I'd stick with them. It
felt like they wanted me to be glad they answered the e-mails within a
couple days.
So I find myself looking for a new enclosure brand. Any suggestions? I need
something that can handle the 4-8 TB range WD Red 3.5 inch disks.
Leam
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