Question 1

Is the adapter 12V?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it uses a plug-in-the-wall 12v adapter that comes with the unit.  By the way, I have been using this unit for the better part of a year now and really love it.  It is relatively quiet and performs flawlessly for me.  I currently have three drives in it of 2TB and will replace them with larger drives down the road.  The unit's cylindrical black case is very attractive as well and I sit mine right on top of my desktop's case (which is also black).   I would recommend this unit to anyone looking to increase their storage options.

Question 2

The specs on the site say it will not support more than 3tb per bay. Customers though appear to be reporting it will support the 4TB drives. What has your experience been?

Accepted Answer

It will support 4TB drives.  However, the other issue with this enclosure is it has a tendency to "drop" drives.  It seems to be much more common when all four bays are filled and heavy activity is happening.

Another user tracked it down to the power supply being underpowered and that very well may be.  It got so annoying that when I bought my Drobo, I took the last two drives I had in this and moved them to internal drive bays in my computer and retired this enclosure.

Question 3

Can raid 1 be set in Windows 7 for this product? Or is there any provision from the manufacturer to set up a raid configuration with this product?

Accepted Answer

Unfortunately you want the Model NST-640S3R-BK if you are looking for any sort of RAID support.

Features:

##Aluminum Casing Cools Down Your Hard Drive

##Vents To Intake Cool Air

##Maximum Transfer Rates Up to 5 Gbps w/USB 3.0

##Maximum Transfer Rates Up to 3Gbps w/eSATA

##Large 80mm Fan w/ On & Off Switch

##Easily Add Storage to Any System with USB 2.0, 3.0 or eSATA

##Backwards-Compatible with USB 2.0 or 1.1

##Hot-Swappable: Plug & Play Without Rebooting

##Attractive LED Indicates Power & HDD Activity

##Supports Individual, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, & 10 Modes

The Model NST-640SU3-BK does NOT support RAID.

Features:

##Aluminum Casing Cools Down Your Hard Drive

##Vents To Intake Cool Air

##Maximum Transfer Rates Up to 5 Gbps w/USB 3.0

##Maximum Transfer Rates Up to 3Gbps w/eSATA

##Large 80mm Fan w/ On & Off Switch

##Easily Add Storage to Any System with USB 2.0, 3.0 or eSATA

##Backwards-Compatible with USB 2.0 or 1.1

##Hot-Swappable: Plug & Play Without Rebooting

##Attractive LED Indicates Power & HDD Activity

Question 4

How do i the top fan slotted assembly to replace the fan?

Accepted Answer

To get the fan out it is either in with L bracket, phillips or allen head scrrew or plastic molded in.

It is a 80 or 90mm fan I beleive. You can get new fan and put it in make sure it is going in right direction - blowing out and sucking air out of the Case. I would use speed fan which is free software to check temperatures on the hard drives without the fan in case you think you can run it without the fans. It is good utility also good is Keep Alive HD which you can make calls to all of the hard drives of any kind as the operating system, the manufacturer are all concerned about saving energy and the worse thing you can ever do to a hard drive is shut it off. Shutting it off properly aligns the heads and is better but a power failure or cords pulled out are deadly. So is the sleep mode. USB 3.0 is still in its infancy as to use. Intel chips, the newer ones, recognize this and offer greater speeds like the ones that they say. I have seen up to 200MBs but nothing steady for anything longer than than that. When the computer is in sleep mode and not reacting while you click on it I have seen too many drives get crossed configured as most Bios on the motherboard are rewritten to not allow USB control and other features. Get a good fan on replacement you are protecting a large amount of information and the cost of the VanTec and Hard Drives is well worth getting more. Like the new Hitachi hard drives give 2 Million Hours to failure whereas the rest of the makers are still at about 200,000 hours. Still a lot of years but 2M Hours is impressive as is their speed.

Question 5

Can you schedule automatic backups for one or more drive?

Accepted Answer

The HX4 holds four drives for external use (you plug the unit in via USB 2, USB 3.0 or eSata), and you can back-up to it, but it does not come with backup software. Each of the drives can be assigned a drive letter or a mount point separately (it is not a RAID unit) but Windows can use it for soft-RAID functions, if desired. We have 8 of the units and so far they seem  dependable (no failures yet). And you can't beat the price for what is does.

Question 6

This product supports 4TB drives in each of its slots, for a total of 16TB. I know because thats what I am running. 
On the market are 5, 6, and even 8TB drives.
Has any attempted to use something bigger than 4TB in these bays? Very interested if anyone has attempted to run the Seagate 8TB ST8000AS0002 archive drives in these bays.

Accepted Answer

I asked the very same question and their response was not until they create a firmware upgrade that will support those size drives. We are all stuck at 4TB per drive max. size until the upgrade, if it ever does come out, is released.

Then again I have moved away from USB based NAS devices and now only use IP based NAS devices.

Question 7

Will it support 4TB drive? On the specification it says that it supports up to 12 TB and I assume that's for total (4 x 3TB drives)

Accepted Answer

I think 3TB is the limit of USB 3.0, thus the enclosure won't go above 12TB.  
 
My only problem is that the drives data start to "vanish" over time, quickly remedied by a quick off, pause for 15 sec, and back on again.  I actually attribute this to my USB 3.0 being such an early version and always been flaky.
 
Great enclosure with great options.

Question 8

If I connect this to a WD TV Live Hub, will it show all 4 hard drives?

Accepted Answer

I doubt it. WD TV Live Hub is USB 2.0. It may recognize the first drive or no drives at all. Remember it is seeing the VanTec not the Hard Drives. Computers are stupid and people are smart. Think like one. I have not tested this on USB 2.0 nor would I plug this into a USB Hub. I have two other CineRaids that go into a USB 3.0 Hub DirectLink as the drivers and support is a mess as everyone is juggling for space in these uncharted waters. Some even conflict with each other in USB 3.0. I had this issue with WD and Hitachi.

Question 9

I've heard this product has limited functionality with Windows 8 (e.g., USB 2.0 versus 3.0 compatible).

Has anyone had success using HX4 with multiple drives on a Windows 8 machine?  If so - how?

Accepted Answer

I have used this device with Windows 7 through Windows 10.
Additionally, I have also used it with AND without USB3.0.  For a time, I had it connected through a 7-port USB2.0 hub, but now I connect it directly to my USB3.0 ports without issue.

Question 10

A recent question brought up that they populated this enclosure with 4TB drives while the specs say that each slot maxs out at 3TB per bay.  Could this be true for all of these enclosures and part of  the USB 3.0 limit, or could it be because of some sort of hardware upgrade?

Accepted Answer

I have one 4TBdrive and 3-2TB drives in this enclosure and the older version that was only USB2 rated with no problems.

This model is directly attached to a desktop PC and the older model is attached to a Belkin router's USB2 port.

Access from the router is much slower as the router prioritizes things to give the internet access priority and external devices like USB hard drives or printers secondary importance.

What I don't remember is if I had to format the drives prior to installing them in the enclosure.  I seem to remember that I just plugged them in and formatted them as I installed them.

I think that as long as you are using Windows 7 or newer you should have no problems with the 4TB drives.  If I had more 4TB drives to plug in I would certainly do that in my two enclosures.

I Just remembered, the little screws that come with the enclosure to hold the drives to the slide in trays are easily discarded with the packing material.  Make sure you locate them prior to throwing anything away.

Questions & Answers