StarTech Dual-Bay SATA Hard Drive Adapter Enclosure with RAID review: Great for hard drives, not for SSDs - faheyandings35

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• Combines to cardinal 2.5-in drives in RAID 0, 1, JBOD, operating theatre Big Disk
• Fits two 2.5-inch drives in a single 3.5-in bay

Cons

• Configuration issues with SSDs
• Disappointing SSD performance

Our Verdict

This cleverly disguised 2.5-edge in RAID envelopment drastically improved the performance of our tricky drives in RAID 0. But continuing problems with configuring SSDs leaves us unable to recommend IT in that part. Still, for hard drives information technology works equal a charm.

Verbalise nigh cagey. StarTech's 35SAT225S3R (available for $60 on Amazon) looks just like-minded a 3.5-inch Winchester drive, simply is actually a two-bay RAID enclosure for 2.5-inch drives. Those drives can equal linked to form a single "Bouffant Disk," striped in Foray into 0 for better performance, mirrored in RAID 1 for data redundance, or treated like JBOD (just a bunch of disks), i.e. multiple volumes.

Subterfuge and camouflage are two words I rarely vex use in computer memory reviews, but that's what came to mind when considering the vista of hiding valuable SSDs in a less desirable guise? I was also wannabe the enclosure could goose the performance of cheaper, slow SSDs comparable the OCZ TL100. Sadly, configurations issues and unsatisfying numbers put on an end to both those ideas. Deep sigh. Perhaps the next iteration.

So in that location's a reason StarTech calls the 35SAT225S3R a hard drive enclosure—and in this respect it excels. It makes IT easy to harness those extra 3.5-inch drive bays you're probably not using any longer, and drastically improves the performance of your slowish 2.5-in hard drives when combined in striped RAID 0. And we the like 2.5-inch hard drives, which, designed for laptop use, induce caused us fewer voluntary problems over the years. They also give rise less heat and are quieter. Generally speaking.

Design

We've already told you most of what you need to know nearly the 35SAT225S3R—it looks like a 3.5-inch hard drive, yet handles two drives. But the simplicity of installing the drives as wel bears mentioning. All you need to act up is slide the catch on the outside of the door at the front of the movement; pop outdoors said door; slide in 2 drives; push the doorway hind into place with minimal pull up, and slide the gimmick to lock. Nice design. We like nice design.

Apricorn

A low-pressure mechanism worked by the swing out masking/door makes IT super easy to install drives in the 35SAT225S3R.

The other end of the social unit is home to the SATA data and power connectors, as well equally the four-way slide exchange for changing the RAID modes. The unit is well-ventilated and slides right-handed into any 3.5-inch bay to be affixed with screws.

StarTech

The SATA connectors and Maraud turn on the business remainder of the 35SAT225S3R  enclosure.

Configuration and carrying out

With a pair of 500GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6 2.5-inch hard drives, everything was ok. We could put down the 35SAT225S3R into any of the four modes without beset. Uninterrupted throughput took a decided turn for the punter as you can see under. Good stuff.

PCWorld

Sustained throughput with 2.5-in hard drives just about doubled in RAID 0.

Yes, the 35SAT225S3R is a great hard drive enclosure, but as I mentioned aweigh frontal, the idea of using it with SSDs was too tempting. Sadly, shift to a pair of 240GB OCZ TL100 SSDs proved problematic. In our first attempt in Foray into 1, the unit kept showing up as a 100MB volume.

PCWorld

We saw this far too oft when nerve-wracking to use up SSDs in the StarTech 2.5-edge RAID adapter.

In conclusion, after switching to Foray into 0 and pre-segmentation both SSDs as a single NTFS volume, the drive showed up as a GPT covert segmentation. Alas, Windows Disk Managing director would not allow us to perform some operations along it. A straightaway trip to the command-line public-service corporation Diskpart allowed United States of America to delete the division and finally create a functional 480GB RAID 0 loudness.

PCWorld

Though there was about improvement in speed with the OCZ TL100's in RAID 0, it wasn't startling, and it took a lot of troubleshooting to set up the array.

There was a definite uptick in the TL100's throughput, but non nearly dual, and possibly not worth the effort surgery the lolly. Of course of action, the TL100's are scows when it comes to sustained write functioning, soh I tried pairing ii faster SSDs and ran into the selfsame 100MB partition. The previous fix didn't work and neither did wiping the drives so I decided to call it a twenty-four hours. So much for stealing and masquerade. Patc you power get along your SSDs to bring up, you might not.

Ratiocination

If you want to leverage a pair of 2.5-inch hard drives into quicker storage for your PC, the 35SAT225S3R is a clever and very effective way to coiffure it. Simply unless you're up for a dogfight and possible disappointment over getting SSDs to come along as an array, stick with hard drives here.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/411847/startech-dual-bay-sata-hard-drive-adapter-enclosure-with-raid-review-great-for-hard-drives-not-for.html

Posted by: faheyandings35.blogspot.com

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