Rosewill RSV-S4-6G SATA 150 & 300 4 x Hot-Swappable 3.5" Drive Bays RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 5+spare, Spanning and JBOD (via Bundled RR622 RAID Controller Card)

Pros: Easy solution to build a RAID-enabled disk library.

Cons: The enclosure really gives me a hard time. I changed it via RMA two times and I have same problems. The card RocketRaid 622 is disaster. It gives BSOD pretty often and I started to look for a similar card, but it is not easy. Last few days the enclosure starts generating a lot of errors, it constantly tries to rebuild the RAID volume by some reason.
I am gonna to give up and move HDDs to another desktop. Unfortunately the server does not have enough internal slots to accommodate those disks.

Other Thoughts: Spend $200-250 for new desktop case + CPU + RAM rather buying this unreliable enclosure. It is a joke.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you very much for purchasing this unit.We strive to provide
the most reliable and highest quality products to our customers.

Please kindly contact the Rosewill support for in-warranty replacement.

Feel free to contact the Rosewill Customer Support team for further assistance at 1-800-575-9885 Monday - Friday 8AM - 5PM PST or via email at techsupport@rosewill.com

Pros: Looks Nice

Cons: It never worked caused me nothing but trouble the whole thing is junk i have never had this much trouble with an item this was my first Rosewill product and it will be my last I will be sending this item back and getting something that will work i went for the cheaper price and that what I got was cheap

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you very much for purchasing this unit. We strive to provide the most reliable and highest quality products to our customers. Please kindly contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at rma@rosewill.com so we may assist you with a replacement.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Price and works well when it works.

Cons: Crashes Windows 7. Tech support so/so.

Pros: Simple and solid piece of hardware. Effective (and fairly quiet) cooling.

Cons: Although you can slide disks directly in from the front door, you'll have to unscrew and remove the outer case to secure them with drive screws. But this is only an issue when you're inserting/switching disks.

Other Thoughts: NOTE FOR LINUX USERS

Even if you're only using this as a JBOD passthrough, you'll pretty much need to install some custom HighPoint software for the RocketRAID PCI card. There are two main things you'll need, both available from their website (google the RocketRAID model number to find it):

* A kernel module for baseline hardware compatibility. HighPoint provides these pre-compiled for a number of distros, but they also provide the source, and based on the advertised version numbers you're probably best-off building it from source anyway. (It's an easy build, and there's only one .ko to worry about.)

* The WebGUI or CLI, which allows you to configure the hardware RAID or do other stuff like detach individual disks. (Personally I recommend the WebGUI for ease-of-use.) Setup is fairly un-complicated if you skim the included documentation. But both options are provided in limited package formats (RPM only for the WebGUI, RPM and DEB for the CLI) so depending on your distro you may need to manually extract the package.

ONE MORE NOTE

The PCI card has a speaker on it! This emits a very unpleasant noise when there's an unexpected failure, including when you unplug a disk, or turn off the enclosure. The only way to stop this noise is to use the HighPoint RocketRAID WebGUI/CLI, or to shutdown your computer. So, install the WebGUI or CLI.

Pros: It was delivered in one piece and it kept my papers from blowing away when my window was open.

Cons: The controller card is junk. I am using in a Ubuntu server and after spending hours figuring out how to get the correct driver for the correct kernel version the controller card does not even work for any RAID configuration. It only works if the disks are setup as JBOD. Any parity and the server crashes from a kernel panic. I'm not the only one having problems with cheap piece of trash. Almost 100 hours wasted.

Other Thoughts: DO NOT TAKE A CHANCE!

Pros: Well constructed. Similar to my San Digital enclosure which is $80 more expensive. Quiet and seems speedy.

Cons: Need to jump a number of hoops especially for 3T drives. Online manual is a must read before installation. Windows restart slows down quite a bit.

Other Thoughts: This seems to be a software RAID which is more dependent on the computer. My San-Digital enclosure is a hardware RAID which is faster to build and easier to maintain.

Pros: As I recall, it was a pain to set up (on a windows pc). Then I moved it to a macintosh (where the controller is not supported so I could not change the configuration) but it has run flawlessly for 18 months now. The speed is fine and the reliability is great. It runs cool and quiet (even on a mac)

Cons: Getting tech support was difficult (the controller people however were excellent) and the documentation was non-existant.

Other Thoughts: I need to expand (I configured it with 4 x 1TB drives) and am about to put 4 x 3TB drives in it (and pray hard...)

Pros: -Price!
-All sorts of RAID configurations possible
-Compact and stylish
-Bundled port multiplier (with included small form-factor bracket!)

Cons: -No USB (but I knew that going in)
-Compatibility issues (see below)
-Poor documentation
-You need a free PCI slot for the bundled card (unless you already have a eSATA with port multiplier)

Other Thoughts: -My configuration is a 9TB RAID 5 with 4 3TB Seagates (no, not the kind that is know to be bad in RAIDs)

-It's been a while since I set this up, so I don't remember every step I went through; it was far from plug-and-play. The biggest issue was that Windows 7 didn't handle the drivers it came with very well, causing my entire RAID 5 to drop. I should know by now to ignore bundled software and immediately go for the newest version online. Even after uninstalling these and installing newer ones, I continued to have problems. After a month of constantly resetting, crossing my fingers for the RAID to come back on properly, and resetting again, I finally reinstalled Windows and went straight for the newest drivers. It works a charm, now!

-tl;dr: Works best with clean Windows install and newest drivers from Internet

Pros: Really good enclosure. I liked ability to run scheduled tasks for media verification. Easy setup, almost Plug and Play.
WHS 2011 server.

Cons: The card died after 40 days of using. The server freezes during the boot process. It even blocks system BIOS. The PCIx card was the problem. I asked for replacement but was advised to send the whole enclosure back. Now I'm waiting for replacement.
It says that supports 3Tb drives. No! When I tried to create a RAID-10 from two 2Tb and two 1Tb drives, I was offered 2Tb volume.

Pros: None

Cons: Drives fit loosely in box, only held in by connectors which break easily. Need to use the screws which eliminates "hot swap". Controller not compatible with other sata controllers on the bus. Both XP and Win7 will hang during start-up. Disabling int18 as some techs recommended on the web didn't help. Scan of BIOS for attached drives idiotically slow. No reasonable instructions for updating the BIOS.

Other Thoughts: Added both HighPoint and Rosewill to my black list.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you very much for purchasing this unit. We strive to provide the most reliable and highest quality products to our customers. Please kindly contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at rma@rosewill.com so we may assist you with a replacement. We are eager to assist you in any possible way and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care