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

This case has allowed me to add 4TB of fast, quiet, cooled storage to my desktop (imac) at a modest cost and add minimal level noise. I need storage capacity because my photo library doesn't fit on imac's internal SSD. I chose two 2TB WD-RE4-GP drives because they were cheap and big enough, and maybe RE4s are a bit more reliable than consumer drives - we'll see. I measured throughput using Blackmagicdesign's "Disk Speed Test" in the default configuration. When configured as 2 separate drives, I got 104.5 MB/s writing and 107.6 MB/s reading. When configured as RAID-0 (single 4TB striped drive) with TRIPP-LITE's internal RAID support, I measured 209MB/s writing and 212MB/s reading. As expected, throughput doubled. The fan on the case stops completely when the drives are not active. Even when spinning, the fan is very quiet and you might not hear it unless it's directly on your desktop. I wanted to attach this sleeve to the end of a 15ft USB 3.0 cable, but the Mac didn't see it. /gp/product/B00C7S0BES which I send back to Revain and receive a 9ft cable. This TRIPP-LITE case uses a Jmicron 539, if that means anything to you. I also tested the same 15ft cable and saved the drive. (s) in Mediasonic's fanless aluminum case: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M94AGRM The good news is that Mediasonic is very reasonably priced and runs off the end of a 15ft USB3 cable. Mediasonic uses the VIA 711 chip, and it's worth it) The bad news is that the drives get very hot inside the case without a fan. Yes, running Striped RAID0 on TRIPP-LITE doubles the capacity and throughput, it also doubles the chance of losing a combo drive, so even with this active cooling solution, I diligently back up my data over the network. In this case, I didn't see any good photos or reviews of the mechanical case, so I've included a few. The mechanical construction is solid and yet spartan. The body is metal and the guides are mostly plastic. Discs can be inserted without the use of screws, although there is room for a few screws. It's also nice to see that the bays also support 2.5" drives and come with a package of screws for this purpose - see photo. Pros: Works as expected (RAID0) Quiet Decent physical build Reasonable price Cons: Doesn't work at the end of a 15ft USB 3.0 cable I'd like manual fan control because I think it's *too* quiet and if If I put it out of earshot, I'd rather trade more fan noise for cooler drives.