Review on Tripp Lite U357-025-UASP USB 3.0 Super Speed External 2.5in SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - Black by Colin Arcos

There is little information about this device on the internet. In addition, there are very few brands that supply empty suitcases. I have used and trust Tripp Lite power products for years without incident, so I hope they continue to deliver the same quality of their drive enclosures. I'm using this with a 2012 Mac Mini set up as a server. I'm using two new Hitachi enterprise quality hard drives, each 3TB. SETUPInstallation was easy, the instructions are suitable for those who are more mechanically inclined. I had to read the part about switching raid modes twice as I was worried about doing it with the device on or off, but the information was there, just not in the most obvious place. OPERATION The drive itself is very quiet. As quiet as any other drive I own. However, the two drives I installed are a bit loud and the housing does not muffle the sound, but amplifies the sound. The drives were much quieter when I had them in my dock with no drives / UPDATE: The sound issue has drastically reduced over time and is no longer noticeable. This could be the result of the shelf I kept the device on, not sure. You can hear the drives spinning while you sleep (I usually listen to it), but the operating noise is pretty quiet unless your head is close enough to the unit. I have two goals with this drive. Reduce the number of cases I maintain (before the install I had 4 external hard drives in separate cases and was low on free space so I had a new case in the future). will be reliable, quiet and comfortable. Second goal: I want to speed things up a bit. Moving data between large drives takes a long time and FireWire doesn't help anymore. Thunderbolt will likely be faster, but cases are expensive. In addition, Thunderbolt 2015 should be revised to Thunderbolt 3. As such, USB 3 is inexpensive so it can be upgraded without jeopardizing your previous investment. test results. I have tested my existing and new drives using the Blackmagic Drive Speed Test. I'm not sure if this is the best tool for testing, but it should indicate whether or not I've gotten a performance boost and show the relative speeds for my existing drives. Estimates are in MB/sWrite/ReadMy internal drives 115/180 for OWC 2014. Mercury SSD installed in mac mini85/84 for standard Apple HD in mac miniMy external drives: 105/106 for 2012 HDD in external enclosure connected via USB 3.0154/255 for 2014 Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive (that's great!) 160/ 160 for the new 2014 Hitachi Ultrastar in the 2012 Newer Tehcnologies voyagerQ Dock via USB 3.0. How did Triplite perform? split into two partitions 264/254 section 1275/255 section 2 When partitions were filled with data, performance decreased slightly (each section 97% full) 175/167 section 1269/253 section 2 Used for general performance indication only. The above are some data that do not meet my expectations and I have not investigated why they do not meet my expectations. It seems that the Raid 0 configuration gives me a speed increase while solving my memory problems. And it's pretty cheap. I'm good with it! practical result. I would spend over $80 for a single drive enclosure and for that price I got a pretty good speed boost so I'm very pleased. RELIABILITY That remains to be seen, I've only been using it for a few days. So far the installation and initial performance has been excellent. Must be updated in a year. At the moment I believe the Tripp lite brand is worth something to its owner and they have done a good job of maintaining their reputation. Update 2016. This device has been working great for almost a year now. I bought a second unit and it is working just as well so far. Very happy with my purchases. Update 2020 Both devices are still running like champions. zero problems. It's time to buy a third device. Update 2021. Now I have four devices. I still love these boxes. I should mention that there are some difficulties following the setup instructions for a proper RAID configuration. The process is a little confusing and has involved some trial and error and some frustration, but it really works and TripLite is here to help. I would give the support at least 4 stars. Might give a 5 if I'm on the phone with someone (I'm old fashioned) but very competent email work, all you need is the patience to email back and forth daily until everything is sorted out. I wasn't in a hurry so it wasn't a big problem for me. I lost my backup set while setting up a new device. Part of me said it was the case's fault, but I was definitely doing something out of the ordinary at the time (in hindsight) and I may have moved a spinning hard drive causing the drive to fail. Luckily I have multiple backups so I reformatted and backed up. Some devices are now only used for backups so they are usually disabled until I run the backup, others are open 24/7.