Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 PRORAID 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA

This is about the RAID version, not the PROBOX (which isn't).I tried with four 4TB drives, and then later four 8TB drives, in a RAID-5 configuration. Performance is *dismal*. Both sets of drives gave me roughly the same performance - 2.5MB/s over USB3.0, and 5.5MB/s over eSATA (with short bursts reaching 10-12MB/s, but those never last for more than a second).Copying instead to an external (single) USB3 drive, on the same system, typically gives me anywhere between 60 to 120+ MB/s, so it can hardly be my system (and I did try a few, with the same results). I understand RAID-5 (in particular) has some overhead, but this *cannot* be "normal". Very disappointing, because this is otherwise a rather solid enclosure, and the RAID selection could hardly be any easier. It's the only thing keeping me from getting another one.I'm still not ruling out some obscure configuration problem, otherwise it'd be on its way back.[Edit, after a few weeks]I've been experimenting with RAID-10 (instead of RAID-5). I knew RAID-5 had significant overhead, when compared with other types of RAID setups, but with RAID-10 - and an otherwise identical configuration - my Write operations are now holding steady at 100+MB/s (vs 5, at best). This makes me *much* happier, even though the cost in terms of storage means I get one fewer drives worth of space. At least this is *usable*. 5MB/s just isn't.I expected overhead with RAID-5. Just not on that scale. Be forewarned, unless you want to invest *days* of experimentation.With this, I'm increasing my rating from 3 stars all the way to 5. I mean, if I wanted faster still, there's models with USB 3.1/3.2. I honestly have nothing else I can complain about right now.

Reasonable price for a raid system, works well and worth a try if you plan to build a raid storage system but with limited budget.

It works well. Currently using with only 2 x 2Tb drives, in JBOD mode. It takes a bit of patience to set up (as the timing of the selections need to be right on...) but otherwise fairly easy. I had read on the web that S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring wasn’t going to be possible with Esata and this unit. (Because of the hardware RAID in the box...) however with my J Micron controller (on Motherboard) it works....with USB it doesn’t (expected anyway...)Be aware that if you want longer USB cables....not all will work. I have tried 2 different 6’ cables...(it comes with a 3’) and neither worked. Have ordered a 3rd, and hoping this one will be OK. This is not a problem with the unit, from reading about it, it seems not all USB 3.0 cables are the same. 😳. (Longer Esata cables are a non-issue...)It has a ‘sleep mode’ which is handy. I shut down my system in the evenings, and have forgotten to turn it off.For my needs, it is a great value. It works as described. I like it. Very happy about the S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring.Hope this helps.Happy Raiding...😊UPDATE; The third USB cable (6’...) that I ordered works! The other two (non-working) were purchased from a local computer shop. The working cable is from Amazon, (if interested do a search for : B00NH144GK )

I am utterly disappointed at this product. I bought it for RAID 5 storage configuration and with high hopes. For first few weeks I had no problems other than it being so noisy, especially when I played any of the videos saved on its drives. Soon after, I started noticing heavy pixelation with some videos with high resolution.I have experienced similar situation on slower computers where the computer’s processing power could not keep up with a high-resolution video’s demands and the video software took a while before settling down to give the video priority processing and getting rid of the pixelation.When I experienced similar pixelation with this console, I figured its drives or the console’s processer might be slow. However, unlike a slow computer, which would recover from aberrations of playback, videos on this medium would not recover and unlike a slow computer, videos on this medium would pixelate at the same timestamp every single time.After running checksum comparisons on many freshly copied videos and running several chkdsk scans, not to mention tons of similar complaints online, I have come to the conclusion that this console is a subpar product which cannot be trusted with my valuable data. The sole purpose of this purchase was to store my data in a medium where chances of data loss could be minimized. Instead, the very device entrusted to protect my data is damaging it.This device is actively corrupting my files, especially large ones. Some get corrupted right away as they are being copied and some get corrupted overtime. I have changed ports and checked my other hardware – which has never disappointed me before – and I have no reason to suspect anything else except this console.I strongly caution anyone thinking of buying this item. And I do hope that Amazon removes it from its platform as a device that could cause long-term losses to its customers’ extremely valuable data.

Instructions are note extremely clear and it's doesn't appear to have any ability to check for bad sectors before using a drive.