I’ve been using this four-drive enclosure for several months with excellent results. Stardom manufactures a full line of enclosures, from 2.5” to multi-bay RAID to be used with dedicated cards. The SOHORAID SR4 is sold as a bare box that supports FireWire 800, 3G eSATA and USB 2.0. An upcoming revision will add front panel controls and USB 3.0. This makes the enclosure particularly attractive to PC users with USB 3.0 ports or Mac users with a third-party USB 3.0 card. Frankly speaking, however, USB 3.0 cards have not caught on with Mac users, and while USB 3.0 is included in the Thunderbolt spec, I do not expect widespread adoption of USB 3.0 on Macs.
The SR4 can be configured via rear panel controls for RAID 0 or RAID 5. Its onboard controller then configures the RAID virtually instantly. The board is a port-multiplier, meaning that it controls four drives and requires only one cable connection. In the case of eSATA, it is important to use an eSATA card that supports port multiplication. Virtually all current eSATA boards do these days. Note that the eSATA interface, whether a PCIe card, PC card or Express34 card, is just an interface—it has no RAID functions other than passing the data. There are many enclosures on the market. What speaks so strongly in favor of the SR4 is its solid construction, positive locking drive trays and virtually silent fan.
The SR4 is sold unpopulated. I chose to configure my unit with four Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5TB drives. The unit is connected to my test Mac Pro via a Sonnet E4P 4-port SATA card using a single eSATA connection. I have also tested it via FireWire 800 to both tower and notebook computers as well as via a Sonnet Qio and Sonnet Express34 card to two different MacBook Pros.
The bottom line: it works and works well. There have been no intermittent connections of power or drive interface, and I have to listen very carefully for the fan when, in moments of panic, I fear it isn’t running.
There are pros and cons to configuring your own enclosure. In my case, I like saving a little money by buying my own drives and mounting them in an enclosure. It gives me control over the drives I use, rather than depending on whatever a given vendor has. In this case, I chose not to spend the extra money for enterprise-class drives, a notion I’ll discuss in the next product. But the Caviar Blacks from WD are fast, dependable and quiet. They fit the bill. I have been using this small RAID as a backup for my eight-drive RAID for some time.
The SR4 as well as the full line of Stardom enclosures would serve you well.
SOHORAID SR4
STARDOM Storage Website
MSRP: about $400
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