Multi-Bay USB Hard Drive Enclosures

[johnnytucats]

Does anyone have any good real-world read/write speeds, as well as general performance obwervations, for any 4 or 5-bay USB hard drive enclosure?

I'm currently rocking along fine with my 2014 build on Mojave but I'm thinking about the future…which is starting to look like an Apple silicon mini and an external enclosure. If a cheaper USB enclosure will suffice that would be the way I'll go.

 

[bonfilio124]

I know this is an old thread but just happened across it.

I have a few. I had a non-raid Orico 5 bay that was just total crap ($65ish). Basically storage for 5 disks, any raid is done in software. Not a bad thing, but combine it with constant USB disconnects from the host, it was just junk. I now use a CineRaid 4bay (about $200?), works 100%. Speeds along around 375MB/s setup in Raid 10. ~15TB after raiding. I also have 2 OWC Mercury Elite Pros (2x2.5") in raid 0. The first has dual 4TB SATA ssds (~900MB/s usb gen 2), the other has dual 5TB 2.5" spinners (~250MB/s), using both in RAID 0. The raid 0 SSDs are for 4K, everything else is 1080p.

Additionally I have 2 12TB Seagates for backing everything up. Jinxing it, but haven't had a failure or corruption event yet.