Review on 🚀 HornetTek X2 USB 3.0 Type C Gen I & Type A Dual Bay 3.5" HDD Enclosure with RAID 0 & RAID 1 - High-Speed Data Transfer at 5 Gbps by Mike Wieneke

I installed this with two 3TB drives left over from replacing my NAS. I had a third drive that I installed in the same outer case. Transfer (write) speeds seemed subjectively about 25% slower than a single drive in an external enclosure, regardless of the mode selected, leading me to believe the internal controller is a bit slow. This would be a suitable backup drive or shared storage. I prefer to set up backups as RAID1 devices for redundancy and this supports RAID1 along with RAID0, JBOD and "normal" which means just two separate drives. The overall quality of the case is decent, especially considering the price, and it looks good too (except for the Serial ATA logo on the front, seriously. Who cares?). The only thing that bothered me was that after installing the drives on the tray, the holes for the screws holding the case together didn't line up exactly with the threads in the aluminum case and were offset by about 1/32 inch. To compress the case, align the screws to screw in. This doesn't seem to be a problem after it's been reassembled, but I've taken it apart a few times to determine the cause of this and haven't been able to. Point, since you usually only do this once when installing drives, to change the drive mode, the dip switches are inside the case, and when you change the mode you also have to press the reset button for about 10 seconds, what i missed in the guide i changed it the first time so i had to take it apart again to reset the controller so it recognizes the new mode. I tested it in several modes on an iMac and everything seemed to work without any problems, apart from the previously mentioned transfer speed. I didn't check the power saving feature explicitly as I'm really not worried about it and the manual says if you have trouble just toggle it on and off with the switch. Others have found an issue with this when using a Mac. However, I had a setting enabled that turns off the drives whenever possible. When I was writing this review, I noticed that the fan would shut down and the drives would actually spin down. When I copied the file to it in this state, it took quite a while to wake up again. I didn't really time it, but it probably took 20-30 seconds for the drives to spin back up and the fan to come on, and then some time before the file started copying. Just something to be aware of - don't get impatient. The fan is also a bit noisy. There is a 40mm fan on the back that works when the device is on, not in sleep mode. There's a switch to turn it off, but heat is the death of electronics, especially mechanical drives, so I wouldn't turn the fan off unless you absolutely need it quiet. The fan switch is recessed and on, so I'd take that as a sign that HornetTek wants it to work unless absolutely necessary. A heat sensor would be a nice feature, but consider the price you pay for it. All in all, if you don't rely on high data transfer speeds, this is a decent external enclosure with RAID support. I can't say anything about long-term reliability. Another little curiosity. There is an on/off switch of sorts on the front of the device, but it's just an indicator light to show it's on. You can even click on it and it looks like it will do something, but it doesn't. I gave it three stars because for the price it seems like a good deal if you can live with the quirks.