Sans Digital 4-Bay eSATA RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD Tower Storage Enclosure w/ 6G PCIe Card TR4M+B (Black)

Pros: Well.It runs with no issues for 2 months now.Raid five (4 hitachi deskstars 1tb)with RR-622 installed on an ASUS M5A97 that runs a built in RAID 0 2 SSDs with no conflicts.On a gigabit switch it gives me transfers between 80-100mb/sec.I disable the sleep pcie function on win7 .Works like a champ.Useful webgui keeps statistics and reports errors.None so far reported.

Cons: Takes time to boot as most raids.So dont reboot.LOL!
Also the initial Raid building took 24hrs to complete.

Other Thoughts: I also own the older TR4M-B. It was giving me trouble on my 2008 server(loosing drives or decreased RAID integrity or rebuilting RAID) until i disable the pci sleep feature. I have peace of mind since. No more errors or failures.

Pros: Fast. Works fine until I put my computer to sleep.

Cons: I don't like the case, even if it is toolless. It's hard to get the top on or off. You're risking your knuckles.

After I put my computer (a 2008 Mac Pro) to sleep and wake it up again, I can't access any of the drives until I reboot the computer. Sans Digital blames HPT, the manufacturer of the SATA PCI card. It may be their fault, but it's now my problem. I've been waiting over two months for a fix. I'm not inclined to buy another Sans Digital or HPT product again.

Pros: Well-built, good value, if you don't already have a RAID set up on your motherboard

Cons: Where do I start?
Oh, how about booting. Or as I like to call it, the bathroom AND coffee AND go-get-a-donut break. JIMMINY CHRISTMAS this thing takes FOREVER to start up. I only have to reboot when windows makes me, and I guess this would be OK for a server which never gets rebooted, but if you shut down every night, this is NOT for you. Oh, and if you turn off the enclosure? Eh, the BIOS is just going to sit around almost as long trying to figure out if there's anything connected. Bleh.
Let's see, who else is it NOT for? Oh, right anyone who already HAS a RAID array on their motherboard. You know, your motherboard with the half-dozen SATA ports? Hope you weren't using those for anything RAID-like. Because this baby won't even let windows start when that's on. Something about the BIOSes conflicting, and SANS Digital has a bios update, blah blah no thanks. I bought this to replace the RAID I have. How can I replace the RAID I have, if I can't boot them up at the same time? How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat kind of question.
I guess I could hook up the array to my laptop... Oh right, that is CON #3. The "free" SATA card they provide? That's not a bonus. That's REQUIRED. The external box itself is completely brainless, and relies on the card to do all its thinkin'. Which means you can't move this enclosure around, in case you were thinking you might do that. You can't. So get used to it.

Other Thoughts: This box is excellent for people who have LOTS and LOTS of extra time to boot their computers & futz with bioses. I'm getting one of the Mediasonic devices with built-in RAID hardware.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for purchasing our products.

There are motherboard in the market that does not provide enough resources to boot along with internal RAID and external RAID controller, and hence could not boot up. We provide a workaround in form of firmware update. Please contact our technical support department for details.

It is not a requirement to use the bundled controller card, as long as you have your only eSATA port multiplier controller card or connector.

At the same time, we also have hardware RAID enclosure, TR4UT+B or TR4UTBPN, for customer looking for build-in RAID solutions.

If you are having problem on the unit, please contact us by calling 1-800-980-1988 for technical support and our engineer will try to resolve it over the phone. You can also contact us at tech@sansdigital.com for e-mail supports.

Pros: Works exactly as expected when not using the bundled controller.

Cons: The bundled controller is junk, throw it out and save yourself from all the headaches people are having.

What I found when trying to use the bundled RR622 was ...

- The RR622 does not seem to support true JBOD, but rather some RAID0 type hybrid that lets you create 4 individual RAID devices!

- The RR622 does not work with ESXI 5.1 (not visible)

What was funny is I had another eSata PCIe laying around (StarTech PEXESAT32) and figured what the heck give it a try. Guess what, the thing now works EXACTLY as expected. Native JBOD and ESXI see's them as native HDD's!!!!!

Other Thoughts: In my opinion, overall this was a good deal, but I also got the $30 rebate (missed the extra $20 though, grrrr!). I will be getting another soon, just w/o the bundled controller.

Pros: setup is easy
cheap raid

Cons: disconnects when copying from time to time
loud (every 5 minutes i heard the drives seek)
hot (if the power was external and fan a little better it prob be ok)

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for purchasing our product.

Please contact our technical support for disconnects problems. The problem could due to hard drives selections, setup as well as incorrectly installed driver.

The unit is designed to run 24/7 operation and supported with enough cooling with the latest high performance drives. It is also normal that if the unit feel warm, since the design provide sufficient cooling by the enclosure.

Please contact us by calling 1-800-980-1988 for technical support and our engineer will try to resolve it over the phone. You can also contact us at tech@sansdigital.

Pros: Good build quality, price, bundled with port multiplier card

Cons: Very, very slow

Other Thoughts: Flashed the BIOS with the JBOD version found in the supplied CD. After that the drives were recognized the my unRAID server running on an HP Proliant N40.

I could not, however, get more than 10MB/s read speed out of my drives.

I am probably going to RMA this unless I find some "tweaks" so I can get acceptable speeds.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for purchasing our products.

Your total performance is about 200MB/s. Since TR4M+B is based on RAID on controller card, the performance is greatly depend on your system. If performance is critical for your application, we would recommend TR4X+B. TR4X+B will have direct connection for each drives, 6G * 4 hard drives to your host computer.

Please contact us by calling 1-800-980-1988 for technical support and our engineer will try to resolve it over the phone. You can also contact us at tech@sansdigital or visit our online forum.

External Link(s):

TowerRAID TR4X+B 24G bandwidth|

Pros: Price, comes bundled with card

Cons: Horribly slow

Other Thoughts: I am getting a less than 10MB/s throughput connected to an HP Proliant N40 server.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for purchasing our products. It is the same post from the reviewer.

Your total performance is about 200MB/s. Since TR4M+B is based on RAID on controller card, the performance is greatly depend on your system. If performance is critical for your application, we would recommend TR4X+B. TR4X+B will have direct connection for each drives, 6G * 4 hard drives to your host computer.

Please contact us by calling 1-800-980-1988 for technical support and our engineer will try to resolve it over the phone. You can also contact us at tech@sansdigital or visit our online forum.

External Link(s):

TowerRAID TR4X+B 24G bandwidth|

Pros: NONE

Cons: Problems start after second start of full system.
After couple seconds I have 1green and three red Status LED.
It saw only first HD. Other was "CORRUPTED".

All my HD were NEW NEWER USED before, all are WD ENTERPRISE EDITION.
I removed them, check - ALL ARE NOT CORRUPTED and have data was written before.
I left only two HD, set RAID 1, copied (6.5 MB/SEC) some info.
Next day my system start REBUILT ARRAY.
Tech support very slow.

Other Thoughts: My last purchase from SANS DIGITAL

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for purchasing Sans Digital products.

We have reviewed your case and find out there are report on the webGUI indicate SMART fail and unreadable/timeout error when using the drives. We suspect the hard drives failure and encourage to test using WD standard diagnostic tools to confirm. The performance is degraded during the rebuild.

In most case, hard drives can write and read using single connection, but fail in the RAID application. Using HDD manufacture's diagnostic tools will be able to confirm it.

For immediate support, call 1-800-980-1988 for technical support and our engineer will try to resolve it over the phone. You can also contact us at tech@sansdigital or visit our online forum.

Pros: Works great, be sure to apply the fix below to prevent drives from going offline dropping out.

Cons: None after you fix the below

Other Thoughts: Here's the eSata drives going offline & dropping randomly fix:

Turn off "Link State Power Management" under PCI Express in the power options menu. (in control panel)

It worked for many others including myself.

Pros: its cheepish

Cons: it works, then brakes, then works then brakes.

was using this for our backup server and the raid always brakes, the drives that they support are few and far between.

over all get another brand or a good nas, or make your own freenas server, anything is better then this product and this company.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for purchasing Sans Digital products.

Form the review, we cannot identify the issues. We support RAID/Enterprise drives for any RAID application. Green or desktop drives trends to create drive failure over times.

Please contact our technical support at tech@sansdigital.com or 1-800-980-1988 for any issues.