Thanks for the answers Rick.
[Rick Sebeck] "Reliability is key - which is why I'm looking for recommendations/real life stories of the difference between the OCW and the sonnet enclosures - since the price for each is so different."
Haven't worked with either and like neither because of cheap appearances and difficulties and compromises inherent in making a decent 4-bay RAID5 box on a budget.
The
one box I do like (worked with the manufacturer for over 12 years) - does have good quality but I know little of its RAID functionality. It also needs a refresh to SATA/600 and USB 3.0.
(Do any 1-st tier vendors have 4-bay RAID5 eSATA boxes? NAS - yes, but how about eSATA/USB/FW?)
There is also an issue of connectivity: 4 drives can potentially have a combined throughput of close to 600MB/s, and using SATA/300, USB 2.0 or FW800 doesn't do it justice. USB 3.0 and SATA/600 are more appropriate.
Then there is a question of what happens when the drive fails. How easy and reliable is the box' volume rebuild procedure and how long does it take? This really is a key question - so I'd hold off buying one until you have a good answer to that.
Generally, it's hard to trust a small and inexpensive RAID5 box for quality of construction and components inside, and thus, ultimately for data integrity. Even half-decent RAID5 controllers aren't cheap - and you aren't going to find one in an el-cheapo 4-bay RAID5 box.
See if you can find documentation on how to rebuild a RAID5 volume after a drive failure: if it's well documented and clear - you may have a winner. If not, I'd look into using dual-drive RAID1 boxes.
HTH.
Alex (
DV411)
