Question 1

how big disks can I use?

Accepted Answer

Per the specs on Newegg "support 4TB per drive, 6GB on SATAIII"

I'm using two 4TB drives I pulled from external enclosures (since they seem to be cheaper than bare drives these days). I believe the 6GB support is a new feature. I don't recall seeing it when I purchased the unit or I would have probably opted for 2x 6TB drives.

I wouldn't worry about it needing to be a 6TB SATAIII drive though as I'm pretty sure any 6TB drive is going to be SATAIII.

Question 2

How does this format the disks?  Fat32, XFS, EXT2, etc?  In case the enclosure fails, can I take a disk out of the enclosure and put them in another computer to easily recover the data?

Accepted Answer

Disks are formatted in whatever format the OS supports for USB/eSata drives.  I don't think there's much restriction.

For enclosure failure, you would only be able to recover the disk(s) if you run the enclosure in "single disk" mode, where each disk just looks like a separate drive.  All other operating modes co-join the disks, making recovery from enclosure failure impossible (or at least improbable).

Question 3

What does Smart fan mean?

Accepted Answer

The fan will speed up or slow down in response to temperature changes.  If the box is cool, the fan will slow down.  If the box is hot, the fan will speed up.

Question 4

Does this work on Linux?

Accepted Answer

If your version of Linux supports USB or multi-port eSata then it should work just fine.

I have used this on an Asus AC56 router (which is Linux based), currently on a Netgear R7000 router (also Linux based), and on Win7 (both USB3 and eSata) with no problems.  I also have 2 of the 4 drive units that are flawless.

Question 5

Is there a way to read the data on a disk should the entire unit fail? For example if the unit stops functioning can I pull one of the drives and connect it to my desktop and read it from within Windows?

Accepted Answer

RAID-1 (mirrored), yes. JBOD independent drive mode, yes. JBOD spanned (multiple drives combine sizes and appear as one) probably not. RAID-0, no.

Question 6

How long does it take to build Raid 1? I have one 2tb hard drive with data. If I add a blank 2tb, Will it build raid 1 automatically?

Accepted Answer

You do not notice time pass as the RAID rebuilds. You can use the drive the whole time. Just don't write to it while it is rebuilding to be safe. The time depends on size, but it is not very long for 2TB. Mine is loaded with 4TB drives and the RAID was built on empty drives.

Be careful, if the HUR3 is not already in RAID 1 mode with the single drive, it will ERASE ALL DATA when you set the mode.

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