Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M+B - 8 Bay eSATA RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD Performance Tower with 6G PCIe Card (Black)

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Price: $287.21    

Product Feature

• Bundled with RR622 RAID controller card for over 250MB/s of RAID 5 performance.
• Supports RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 5+ spare, spanning and JBOD.
• Backward compatible with PCIe 1.0.
• Supports online expansion to expand capacity without the need to recreate the RAID volume and erase the existing data.
• Built-in real time hard drive health monitoring and e-mail notification for critical events.
• Accesses eight hard drives using only two cables.
• Supports PC, Linux and MAC OS; including Windows 7 and Snow Leopard.

Product Description

The TowerRAID TR8M+B is a compact RAID tower utilizing the latest SATA II port multiplier technology where two eSATA cable connects to eight SATA hard drives. Bundled with a high performance PCIe 2.0 x1 RAID controller card RR622, its RAID 5 performance is capable of reaching over 250MB/s. Online expansion is a feature included in the controller card which allows the RAID to be expanded without the need to recreate the storage space or erase the existing data. Advanced monitoring functions include real time hard drives health status and e-mail notification for critical events. Designed with easy installation in mind, the TR8M+B is designed with eight hot-swappable tray modules so that hard drives could be removed and installed with ease. The included dual-port eSATA 6Gb/s PCIe 2.0 x1 RAID controller card allows the connection of eight hard drives using only two cables, while all drives could be configured into a single or multiple RAID arrays, providing over 200MB/s in performance. Bundled with RR622 RAID controller card for over 250MB/s of RAID 5 performance. Supports RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 5+ spare, spanning and JBOD. Backward compatible with PCIe 1.0. Supports online expansion to expand capacity without the need to recreate the RAID volume and erase the existing data. Built-in real time hard drive health monitoring and e-mail notification for critical events. Supports PC, Linux and MAC OS; including Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. Accesses eight hard drives using only two cables. Host interface: eSATA with Port Multiplier. Drive interface: 8 x 3.5" SATA I/SATA II.

Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M+B - 8 Bay eSATA RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD Performance Tower with 6G PCIe Card (Black) Review

The Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M+B is an eSATA port expander box. The RAID functions are all handled by the included Highpoint RocketRAID 620 series SATA RAID card. Without using the supplied card, the TowerRAID is simply a port expander only and has no other intelligent functions built in.

The front panel is clean and shows 8 status LED's for each of the 8 drives, a power light, a link light showing connectivity to your computer and the master power button. The case itself is sheet metal with the exception of the front door cover (plastic) and drive bays (metal trays with plastic latches and facings). There are two eSATA port connectors in the rear to connect to the eSATA expansion bridge. The hotswap drive bays seem relatively sturdy and function fairly well to easily eject and replace the drives as needed. There are no vibration dampeners on the drive bays and drive mounts, so be aware of this when you go to choose hard drives. Some "green" drives have been known to produce higher than average vibrations in RAID cases.

I had thought from the pictures that this case was brushed metal throughout. It is not. The entire front of the unit is textured plastic resin and matching paint over it to match the finish of the product. If anything, I would knock off one star due to this fact as I was looking for a solid metal case and chose this over a competitor because of this. Judging by the photos you could expect it to be all metal, but it is metal and painted resin. It is actually lighter than expected because of this. So not sure if that counts in for anything or not, but it is only about 4 lbs or so empty. The case dimensions are approximately 6.5" x 13.5" x 13.5". So slightly smaller and slightly wider than a slimline tower.

Functionality wise, the RocketRAID is SATA-3 and has a capacity of handling 6GBit/sec throughput through each of its 2 eSATA ports and is capable of supporting up to 10 hot swappable drive bays. The included Sans Digital software is Microsoft Windows only, but you can go to the Highpoint website and download additional drivers for Linux, FreeBSD and other OS environments. I did not see drivers for Mac OSX anywhere, so have no clue if this will even function for a Macintosh as stated or if this card will even fit in a Mac Pro. From what I have seen, I cannot see how this is Mac compatible unless you use it simply as an eSATA expansion box without the RAID card on a Mac.

I was a little worried after reading the brief 2 page instruction booklet on setting this unit up that it was 100% dependent on Windows. But checking the Highpoint website made me realize that the RAID functions are BIOS enabled and can be selected and setup on boot. You do not need the Sans Digital Windows software at all to really use this unit. I had planned on using this for a ZFS expansion array on a FreeBSD box, so wanted something that was OS agnostic and could function as a JBOD. I was happy to see that this can be done through the BIOS settings and is not dependent on the supplied Windows software to configure as the Sans Digital instructions suggest.

I may come back and edit this review after populating it with SATA-3 drives and using it a bit. But so far I am fairly pleased with the product (other than the plastic case parts).

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