Mediasonic H82-SU3S2 ProBox 8 Bay 3.5" Hard Drive External Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA

TL;DRI recommend getting the ProBox for huge capacity storage in a single package. Otherwise, I would recommend getting 2 x 4 bay enclosures for the same price, if the drives will all be under heavy use at the same time.Full Review Below:Quality construction and design. The "hot swap" handles are unique compared to other enclosures I've used. Instead of yanking the drives out harshly, the handles flip down, gently disconnecting the drive before pulling it out. The transfer speeds drop off significantly when reading/writing to multiple drives at the same time. The fans aren't that loud, despite what other reviews say. Not something you'd want a foot from your head, but it's largely silent from 6ft away. The fans also have an “auto” mode, meaning they only turn on when cooling is needed.One concern I had is how it would handle larger capacity drives, considering most enclosures have problems with them. I'm using 7/8 of the bays, with my largest drive being a 12TB WD Gold. There's been zero issues with it being recognized, and I'm getting the full 250mb/s read/write the drive offers.I've used several multi-bay enclosures, with the highest performing being the 4-bay Icy Dock Black Vortex. The ProBox is a great choice for high-capacity storage, supporting at minimum 8 x 12TB drives. However, the performance is frustrating when reading/writing to multiple drives. I added a video showing a comparison between individual and simultaneous speed test results.There's been several reviews stating that the USB cable it uses is “proprietary” or “rare”, which is simply not true. It's called a “USB 3.0 Type A to B” cable. The cables that come with the enclosure are incredibly short, so if your computer is going to be more than a 10” away I'd also order a longer cable. This is the USB 3.0 cable I used for it, without issue.  Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Type A to B Cable in Blue 10 FeetCable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Type A to B Cable in Blue 10 Feet

Running the Probox on Linux Mint 19.2. It is connected to my main desktop/server by a ASMedia sata controller. I have also tried it via USB 3.0The unit is fairly straightforward -- screw in the mounting bracket to your drive and slide it into an empty tray. There is no hardware RAID or worries about the Probox reformatting existing data. I shucked one of my dead network cloud WD and installed the drive without any worries to get access to the data (keep in mind some of these network cloud devices in my experience can have strange partitions so beware). If you need raid, you can always set one up using mdadm but that being a software raid can take a small performance hit. But, oh well...SMART works only via e-sata, which I think is more a limitation of how USB 3 works than an issue with the Probox. In any case since I was planning on using e-sata anyway this didn't affect me. But it's good to point out just in case anyone is wondering.

This thing's expensive and you probably only need it for a specific use case but it's been a tank for me. I have this hooked up via USB 3.0 (Syba add-in card based on Renesas chipset) to my home server which runs 24/7 and uses StableBit DrivePool to treat every drive in the box as one large pooled storage volume. This thing is often worked very hard (especially when backing up my systems or archiving video projects) and it's very reliable. Stays on, never drops USB connection and can handle putting all 8 drives under simultaneous heavy load. I have read that the eSATA is not as reliable (plus, it requires a very specific kind of add-on card) but I don't use it. The fans are also loud (even on low speed) and they use a weird connector and it's very hard to find, quieter, third-party replacements. If the noise is an issue, you'll likely need some soldering experience to put in quieter fans. Other than that, this box is a tank and for my use case, I am very happy.

On receipt, specs on box state Win 10 desktop only, not on Surface Pro et al. I use Surface Pro 4, hoped I might be spared. All works fine for about 1 minute or less, drives & contents recognized, then box switches off. I tried work arounds at the Forum, e.g. using powered hubs, etc, but no luck. Extremely well made product, but just can't get this 8 bay usb 3.0 or in the past their 4 bay usb 3.1 with their recommended substitute adaptor cable to work properly on my system. Using Thermaltake dual docking stn without issues instead.

works well, does it's intent, good speed for USB 3.0...2 minor irks..1) it is sometimes a pain to line up a disk's sata connector with the backplane to get a disk installed2) the "tray" is basically useless for anything.. a small piece of plastic really only serves to help pull out a disk.. there are far better designs for disk trays.