Any reviews on 5x3 or 4x3 Enclosures?

[JimmyNeutron]

Hi,
I've been looking for some reviews and couldn't find any reviews on these 5x3 or 4x3 enclosures.

I want to add one or two of these to allow me add more storage space to my system and the ability to hotswap out drives that are and are not in RAID configurations.

1. Would the OS be able to detect the change in hard drives even though they are identical and display the contents of the new drives in a non-RAID configurations?

2. Does anyone know if these units carries any sort of alarm system to detect rising heat? Is the alarm system for the entire enclosures or it measures the heat independantly for each HD slot?

3. With active cooling, how hot does the hard drives get assuming 7200RPM HDs?

4. I'm guessing the 5x3 would get much hotter than than 4x3 since the 4x3 would have more space between them. If this is true, I guess I'll need some reviews on 4x3 as well.

What I'm looking for on an enclosure like this is an activity LED, and power LED, and an alarm LED for each HD slots. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I've been looking at other people projects and see all kinds of enclosures out there but no reviews.

Thanks!

 

[axan]

look at this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995001
seprate led and power button for each drive as for your question
1 yes, you would be able to eject and change drives and have the os pick up the changes
2 it has alarm and it's for the entire enclosure not individual drives
3 depends on few factors, case ventilation, ambient temp etc, but my segates 7200.10 get upto 45 C my aaks run cooler around 41 C tops
4 actually its not huge difference but yes 5x3 runs bit hotter then 4x3

 

[LittleMe]

I'd have about the same answers as axan but I'll say, avoid Athena products. They're cheaply made and just junk. I have a few Icy Dock and Supermicro enclosures and they've been great. The Supermicro's just feel like a better a quality. This would be my first choice and this would be my second. Just make sure they'll work with your case. If it has the little metal tabs in the 5 1/4 slots that the drives can rest on, they won't work without cutting those out. This Icy Dock 4 in 3 will work though.

 

[unixadm]

I'd have about the same answers as axan but I'll say, avoid Athena products. They're cheaply made and just junk. I have a few Icy Dock and Supermicro enclosures and they've been great. The Supermicro's just feel like a better a quality. This would be my first choice and this would be my second. Just make sure they'll work with your case. If it has the little metal tabs in the 5 1/4 slots that the drives can rest on, they won't work without cutting those out. This Icy Dock 4 in 3 will work though.

I agree with the recommendation of the Super Micro bays. I run two of them with a total of 9 drives, and they work nicely. I installed quieter 92x25mm fans tho.

 

[axan]

I actually have athena at home, and few icy docks and supermicro at work, I agree that the supermicros have the highest build quality out of all of them, but the athenas are not too bad and the nice thing about athena enclosures is separate power button for each drive. You can't really go wrong with any of them but if you want the highest possible build quality then go supermicro.

 

[gjvrieze]

I too have 6 Athena back planes, and honestly, in my current configuration, work pretty good, they have 2 speed fans, pretty quiet in low, and loud/moves tons of air in high

I have used Icy Dock backplanes as well, and unit was nice in some aspects, the connectors on the back are all over and made cable management a real PITA!!

If you have the room, the Supermicro's are supposed to be really nice, but they are deeper then the before mentioned....

 

[jcazes]

THIS thread might be of use to you. I just bought the 5x3 Icy Dock (because it has a $15 manufacturer's rebate... I purchased it from ANT online for a bit over $105 shipped) but am still on the fence with regards to my post-purchase opinion. Design is lacking for airflow and the screwholes on the side. Some of the holes don't even line up with my CM Stacker (which I trust a lot more than Icy Dock in terms of screwhold placement). That coupled with a tiny/oddly sized screw and a REALLY tight fit made installation a pain in the ass.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I'm not impressed with airflow (Raptor is 40C and maxtor is 45C). Who knows, Maybe this is the norm for 5x3 backplanes? The only thing I can do is get a better fan.