Review on 📁 Syba SY-ENC50104 4 Bay 3.5” SATA III HDD Non-RAID Enclosure – USB 3.0 & eSATA Interface, Black by Josh Sheehan

I had several external drives connected to my iMac for different purposes and because of this I was always missing USB ports and I was very tired of all the power supplies for each drive. I had power strips, USB hubs, and cables everywhere. This box is the perfect solution to this problem. I installed 5 bare drives in 8 slots on my device and got rid of 4 USB connector cables, an extra USB hub (which often gave me problems) and 5 separate power supplies. This thing really cleaned up my computer. The box is quiet (actually silent, stands on the floor next to the computer desk), compact and has been working perfectly since it was bought for a month. No unwanted shutdowns, and hey, it just works! In the lower left corner of the front panel is a main power switch that turns off power to the entire device. And each drive slot has a switch to turn off just that drive. This is very convenient as drives can be hot swapped and it allows you to power off only the drive you want to replace and turn on the swap when you are ready. About a minute after turning it on, the new drive will appear in the computer's drive list. It also allows you to have drives "offline" but ready to use at the push of a button. All without removing other drives in the device. This enclosure is NOT a RAID device. Each drive appears as a separate drive, as if it were separately connected to the computer. You can create a RAID array with RAID software if you want, but the enclosure doesn't have this built-in feature. This is JBOD, "just a group of disks" what I need. It's also not a NAS. It connects directly to the computer via USB (or via an eSATA connection) and not to a network router. However, its volumes can be shared like any other external drive within the capabilities of the operating system you are using. This works great on my iMac with Mojave, and mapped drives show up fine on Windows 10 with Parallels. (You once because Seagate's interface does something unusual in the way they interact. This box has a standard SATA interface for each slot, so any bare SATA drives plug right in and work like a charm. ) It works the same as the usual external housing any disc. Yes, the box has a plastic frame on the front, but the rest of the case is solid steel. (It looks and is made similar to a mid-size black tower PC case.) The drive trays are relatively lightweight plastic with a small metal insert on the front where the locking mechanism is located. But the latches are easy to use (side-clamp) and the trays are easy to insert and remove. If you are a little careful when removing the trays, they work just fine. It would be nice if Syba sold mounting plates separately, but as far as I know they don't. The drive trays fit snugly in the box, the latches work, and there's ample ventilation for the drives with selectable high/low speed on the internal fan. The bays work with standard 3.5" drives or a 2.5" laptop. size, and they're "tool-less" since you don't need screws to mount standard drives. There are springy plastic pins on the sides of the tray that snap into the mounting holes of 3.5-inch drives. The trays have holes at the bottom (and give you little packages with matching screws for attaching 2.5" laptop drives). There was a problem installing the laptop drive. The spring pin on the rear right side meets the drive side as there is no hole there. So when you try to install the tray, the spring pin sticks out and is quite difficult to insert. I think this particular spring pin will probably run out. stop if you've done it a lot. But if I were going to be using these drives a lot, I'd probably just pop out that back pin in those compartments anyway, because even if there were only 3 of the 4 pins, the drive would be more than secure. So, small problem, simple solution. My only minor issue was that there was no natural place to put labels on the front of the drive trays to indicate which drive was where. You get up to 8 drive slots depending on the configuration you buy, and after a while it can get cumbersome constantly referencing the foreign key to figure out which drive is in which slot. I solved this by designing and 3D printing a small 1-1/2" wide, 1" tall T-shaped nameplate that fits in the vent between the latches (there's plenty of room for enough airflow) . I affix a DYMO label to each print for easy replacement if needed. Now it's easy to tell what's where. I ordered a longer USB 3.0 cable because 1m/3ft. The cable that came with the kit could not easily reach the back of the computer. When I check the speeds on the drives, they are exactly the same as before when they were connected individually. (I didn't test the eSATA interface.) In general, this is exactly what I needed. I am very happy with this Syba drive enclosure.