EdgeStore DAS200 2 Bay USB & SATA DAS Enclosure

Good looks and design, but the fan is way too noisy. Also, these units are supposed to have "Power Smart", (that's what it says on the box) where the hard drives shut down when the computer is turned off. I don't know if I got a faulty unit, but connected by USB the hard drives continue to spin and get quite hot after shutdown.

I had been looking for a very very long time for a raid 0/1 hard disk enclosure that supported sata drives with, and here is the vital bit, an esata connection. I've seen many products that meet the above spec but without the eSata connection. Most of these other alternatives that only worked with the much slower usb2 or firewire were well over £100. The only item i found that may have met my requirements and cost around the same price as this product is a product by the Asian company "Tsunami". I have one of these drives but its much less solid in terms of build and the second one I received was incompatible with the disks I used / faulty and needed returning. I was incredibly impressed by the build quality of this item. It does exactly what it should. Its very fast, way faster than my internal disks when using speed test tools and it has worked reliably since power up. -- UPDATE 13/12/11 Note: This drive doesn't seem to support the new 2TB and up drives, probably because they use "4k sector alignment". I may be wrong that all 2TB drives dont work, but Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint F4 certainly dont.

Before buying read most of the reviews and there were some negatives but primarily about fan noise. As this was going in the loft it didn't matter to me so I took the plunge. On unboxing it I have to say my first impressions echo most of the other reviews, build quality is superb for the money and on a par with some of the bigger names in the storage arena. Also, when the case is removed the fan connector is very easy to get to so I've disconnected the fan, only because the unit it so well vented anyway and the fan is pretty overspecced for the unit. I've tried it in all modes of operation and so far it's been flawless, with very good throughput over eSata. Easily a recommended buy.

I am amazed at the positive reviews for this piece of garbage, build quality looks good, it is certainly well put together, for me though the positives stop there. The Edge 10 website says that the device can be set via the dip switches to auto power down the drive, yet download the manual and there isn't a single mention of this, the dip switches are for setting the raid mode. Basically as long as this unit has the power on your drives will be spinning whether they are being used or not. Even if you un-mount them from your system they will keep on spinning, generating heat and general wear and tear shortening your drives life. The fan has an 8cm fan which granted keeps the drives nice and cool, but it is rather noisy due to the poor design of the vent at the back and probably wouldn't even be needed if it didn't keep your drives spinning 100% of the time. I tried putting a silent fan in mine but as soon as the case is closed up you get a very irritating background noise. The only thing I could recommend this thing for would be doing back-ups turn it on, back up your data to it and turn it back off before you do permanent damage to your hearing.

On the whole it was OK, right up until it inexplicably died on me. Was working happily set up as a RAID backup for my MacBook Pro until 16 months down the line the unit started coming up with error lights and wouldn't mount. The HDDs were fine thank goodness, just the box was shot. Tried it with different drives and on different PCs and Macs, nothing. I'll be getting a different model next time. + Sturdy + Looks nice + Easy to put together - Unreliable - The fan is quite noisy and is 'always on' - The gloss black finish is a dust magnet

The item is very well made and setup was simple. I do however believe it is rather noisy. I have it sat next to my HP mediasmart server which to say it is running FOUR drives is not half as noisy. Great product but you won't want it sat on your desk.

I'm sure this is not the most high end harddrive enclosure on the market, and its appearance is quite basic, which I like, but that might not be everybody's cup of tea. However the setup was idiot proof, and I installed and ran two harddrives in a matter of a couple of minutes. There are options other than to have two separate drives for storage, and these options looked very easy to set up with a simple slider setting at the rear of the drive enclosure. For me and my capacious appetite for using up terabytes I just wanted an unobtrusive device, that was relatively quiet, inexpensive, and did the job. I'm please say it has respectably lived up to my expectations.

I like it, usual prompt service, and it works as expexted. No problems with setup. Fan is a bit noisy though.