IVIEW HFR2-SU3 RAID 0/1/3/5/10, JBOD, CLONE, Normal 4 3.5" Drive Bays USB 3.0 / eSATA 4-Bay HDD RAID Enclosure

Pros: Looks good, comes with everything you need, easy to set up, price, sturdy

Cons: Fan is the loudedst thing in the room and can't be turned off.
2 of us bought this same unit for use with our iMacs. Configured as JBOD. Both of them eject discs randomly on their own, often happens when machine is coming out of Sleep mode but not always, sometimes discs are just ejected for no apparent reason whether in use or not

Other Thoughts: Very unreliable and a hugely dissapointing purchase.

Pros: Very easy to install,just make sure you pick Raid format or use the USB like I did because I'm using a laptop.

Cons: The hardest part were finding screws for my HD.I took a old PC and used the screws from that PC in order to mount the drives.

Other Thoughts: I also wanted to add that I was able to share one of my drives on a network for other users / friends so they can download programs from my divice wireless.

Pros: Shiny lights and easy setup.
Also the screws are actually included in the box you just have to dig for them.

Cons: Mine really must be defective. I' hae mine set with 4 x 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 drives in a RAID5 and after testing on 2 different machines using both E-SATA and USB3.0 (to a USB3.0 port) my maximum transfer speed has been 12MB/s with a average transfer of 9MB/s (E-SATA) and 6MB/s USB3.0 since as the other reviewer mentions it struggles with smaller files on USB3.0

Honestly I'm going to have to return this enclosure and get a different one considering how horrible it's RAID controller is acting. I might give this company a second shot but if that one doesn't work then sorry JMICRON but your hardware is as advanced as your software and your website

Pros: 4-bay storage
LEDs bright, clear, and nicely designed
controllable 80mm fan
eSata and USB3 (backward compatible with USB2)
RAID
Quiet on lowest and highest settings

Cons: eSata Multiplexing host-controller dependent
RAID handled by hardware dip-switches

Other Thoughts: I don't have a USB3 controller on my motherboard and my eSata controller doesn't support multiplexing, so I can't do anything over eSata--I'm left to using this as a giant, but functional, USB2.0 enclosure. I run the device primarily as a JBOD storage volume for all the drives that don't fit inside my current case. As a result, i can't test any meaningful speeds (and I know that's important for some people). For me, it's not.

Unfortunately, I can't quite get the drive to recognize all of my drives if plugged into bays 1,2, and 3. Instead, I have them in 1,2, and 4, and it works as it should. I can't knock eggs down for something which very well might be my aging hardware, and I can't verify this until I do a rebuild later this year.

Also, I can't get the "power synching" function to work. Essentially the drive cuts power to the drives if it it loses connection to the USB (as in, either you unplug it or the computer turns off its USB ports). My mobo doesn't do that in sleep or power-off, so this 4-bay enclosure would stay powered on 24\7 if I didn't flick it off.

I want to replace the fan with an LED version, but I can't quite tell if it's a 10mm or 15mm fan--definitely not the 25mm fan depth of a standard case fan. A project for another day.

The fan is pretty quiet. On the lowest setting, you can't even tell it's there. On the highest, it's noticeable, but out powered by my case fans and definitely by my stock CPU cooler. It still manages to move quite a bit of air.

Pros: Includes USB3 and e-Sata cables. Small compact size. Adjustable fan speed for quiet operation. Easy setup. Came with screws for HDD installation. Supports 3TB drives.

Cons: Drives can be 'locked' in place without actually being connected to the back plane. I had the unit on my lap and was dropping the drive straight down with no resistance, had to push the drive down at the back so it would slot in. If you stand the unit up, it they seem to track in better. Sort of a con, you have to set dip switch settings for RAID configuration type, and then match that in the software; could be a problem it you miss that, but it was very clear in the manual.

Other Thoughts: Installed 4 WD 3TB red drives. Set dip switches to RAID5. Connected E-Sata. Turned on. Installed software from CD. Ran software, and set the raid configuration to RAID5 and selected all 4 disks. In Win7 disk management I created a new simple volume GPT partition with 64K allocation unit size (unit holding large backup files 1GB - 4GB in size). Did a quick format. Done. Took 5 minutes total from power up. Transfer speeds

To RAID5 volume 8GB file: 40MB/s.
(Not bad for RAID5 Parity overhead)

From RAID5 volume with (different) 8 GB files: 130MB/s.

Very happy with purchase for Black Friday price!

Don't forget, noise and heat will be dependant on the drives you buy!! Red drives are cool and quiet and built for raid!

Pros: Looks great, has USB 3.

Cons: Fan is way louder than my SansDigital TR4M-BP. But that wouldn't have bothered me if either Normal or JBOD mode had worked on eSATA. Additionally, only one drive (out of 4) was recognized using USB 3.0. Don't waste your time with this one, buy something with better reviews.

Other Thoughts: I'm very upset that I've lost $10 on return shipping.

Pros: - Looks nice
- For $100 it's not a bad deal if you hate dealing with multiple enclosures and their cords

Cons: - Fan doesn't do much, and it seems you can't turn it off
- Slow if you're planning to use it for individual drives (see comment)

Other Thoughts: I have it filled it up with 4 big drives set it to 'normal' (individual access) mode - let's called them A, B, C, D. And an extra drive - E - hooked up separately, all through USB 3.0. Backing up one set of data from drive A to B, and another set from C to E, I never even reached 100MB/s. Between the two transfers I'd only get 60-90MB/s total. That's hardly the claimed limit of USB 3.0 (500MB/s), even if you double it.

Pros: After replacing my 3 Linksys NMH410 with 3 WD MyBook Live Duo NAS Drives, I was left with 3 2TB WD green Drives, and a 1TB Green Drive, and was looking for an enclosure that could hold 4 drives and make it work as 1 large 7TB drive.

This iView Unit does this task flawlessly. I have the option to leave it always powered on and have it put itself in a sleep mode, when my computer is turned off, or in sleep mode, or power it on when needed. It has a fan control dial on the back, I haven't had to use it, but I would imagine that if my work area were extremely warm, the adjustable fan speed would be very handy.

The software that is bundled with the iView is not the greatest, but it does work very effectively, I did not bother using the dip switches on the iView to set the type of configuration I wanted, I used the software which did the trick just as easy as the dip switches would.

I'm using the USB 3.0 connection, and withe the WD Green Drives, I'm getting very good transfer speeds to the drive, and have used about 3Tb of the 7TB space available.

The iView has 5 indicator LED's, 1 for each HDD installed, and one for Power On, when writing to a drive, an led will blink on the drive that is being written to, when the drive is full, it blinks on the next drive that is being written to (JBOD, Large Mode), a way to let you know how much data you've written so far to the device.

Cons: the only con would be the software, it works great, but could use a shock and awe!, but, this is really just nit picking since it does perform quite well.

Other Thoughts: If you have some spare drives laying around and would like to use them for something other than a coaster, this is an idea enclosure to purchase, the ability to configure it the way you want it, make it an excellent external storage device to own, I would recommend it to anyone.

Pros: Easy installation. No issues with drive doors nor with setting RAID configuration. Fast USB 3 interface. Works great with my server on eSata connection.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I definitely buy another...outstanding price

Pros: East to setup, Hot Swap, different modes to suit different needs, form factor, quiet

Cons: Haven't found one yet

Other Thoughts: Bought it for a work project. Loaded it with four 2TB drives. Over the course of development we went from JBOD to RAID 10, and Normal modes. Settled on RAID 10 for speed and redundancy. The drive is fast, easy to load and use. When we changed mode, we changed the DIP switches and then hit reset! So easy!! We lost a HD tray handle and IView sent one to us very fast and out the door it went to a customer demo.
We have used several external RAID devices, and this one has none of the other issues. It's fast, doesn't rebuild constantly, quiet and variable fan, USB 3.0 or ESATA. Every one of our test servers can interface to it without issue.
If it can survive through the next quarter, we will probably be purchasing a few more.