Question 1

Thinking of using WD red 4TB raid 1 in this unit. Will those drives be supported and suitable?

Accepted Answer

I know that it does support 4TB drives.  I opted for the Seagate Desktop Class 4TB since I was on a budget.  I still transfer at 20-30MB sustained per second on USB 2.0 interface.

The WD Red drives you mentioned should also work, but I would recommend the Faster RPM (and cheaper) Seagate NAS drives.

Search Seagate NAS 4TB on Newegg to find.  For some reason they didn't let me paste a link in this message

Question 2

What size is the fan in this enclosure? Their specs say 80mm but there is no way it's 80mm.  I suspect it's 40mm but I want to be sure if anyone can measure it.  Going further is it a 12 or 5 volt fan?

Accepted Answer

12 V 40mm fan.

Question 3

Can it be used with just 1 drive? I plan to get 1 drive now and then add a second later.

Accepted Answer

Yes, it can be used with one or two drives. This unit is the best plug & play enclosure ever. U use my exclusively to test and scavenge problem drives.

Question 4

Does this product support port multiplication?

Accepted Answer

Unknown. I don't have a port multiplier installed in my gaming rig. I would shoot StarTech's customer support that question before buying.

Question 5

Can I use this enclosure without raid so I can have 2 HDD's separately instead of as raid?

Accepted Answer

Yes, there are four settings...

JBOD, the one you want, just a bunch of disks.
BIG, one logical volume with no striping.
RAID-0, one logical volume with striping.
RAID-1, mirrored set, 1/2 the space usable, but fully redundant.

JBOD will allow the OS to see each disk indepently.
BIG will fill the disks in order; in the event of a drive failure, part of your data may be recoverable.
RAID-0 will strip the data for performance, however if one drive fails all your data is lost (scary RAID).
RAID-1 will only offer 1/2 the total available space as usable, although in the event of a drive failure you still can access all your data.

Hope this helps.

Question 6

What decibel level would you guess this unit creates? Can you hear the fan and drives?  Thank you for your time.

Accepted Answer

Not screaming loud, but fairly annoying.
(Serious Fan noise)

The Cal Digit T3 is MUCH quieter
(Gentle whooshing)

(The new 2013 Mac Pro is MUCH MUCH quieter)
Virtually un-hearable

Question 7

Does this work with Linux, specifically CentOS 6.x?

Accepted Answer

I am using this on Fedora Core 20 (CentOS 7 equivalent) and it detects it as a standard drive.  Worked flawlessly.

Question 8

is there any issues using this as an imitation NAS by connecting it through the usb on my wireless router?

Accepted Answer

That is how I use it with an Asus router on network with Macs.

Question 9

Hi Tech Wizard,

Configured as a RAID-0 (striped) storage device--Is the maximum size of EACH hard drive equal to 4TB?

That is--In RAID-0, is the maximum total capacity of the enclosure 8TB?

Appreciating your help,

Bill

Accepted Answer

No, it's still limited by whatever file system you're going to use. Whatever the overhead of say NTFS is, is what's going to be your limiting factor...and whatever RAID option you choose, such as using a spare...so on.

Questions & Answers