So it's that time again when I'm reevaluating my storage setup, but unfortunately I seem to be in quite a niche area; I need high capacity, directly attached storage, but would like it to be as compact as possible.
Currently I have two external, bus-powered 2tb USB 3 drives for a 4tb main volume, and a single external 5tb USB 3 drive for Time Machine backups, plus a 6tb NAS as a second backup, but I'm in danger of outgrowing the 4tb main volume (and everything else as well soon after).
The thing is, I'd really like to not just upgrade capacity, but also add some redundancy on those directly attached drives.
So I've been looking for USB 3 drive enclosures, preferably supporting four or more disks, and ideally 2.5" disks so that the units can be as compact as possible, but I've been finding the pickings to be rather slim. There used to be the Drobo Mini, which I'd though I might get, but Drobo appear to have since discontinued this, so prices aren't great and items have dubious warranty coverage.
Are there any good multi-bay units out there? I'm willing to consider 3.5" units as well if there are better options, and four bays is just a minimum, but bearing in mind that I'd like something reasonably compact (unfortunately where I am space is at a premium). Any got anything like this that they're using?
Onboard RAID support would be great, but not a requirement, as I can always use AppleRAID or OpenZFS for combining disks; I realise over a single connection performance won't be amazing, but it just needs to be good enough for moving large files back and forth from time to time (we're talking maybe 1-5 gigabytes a day, but ever growing).
My system doesn't have Thunderbolt, and I'd prefer not to go the NAS route for a main volume as I have more than enough networking headaches as it is
Currently I have two external, bus-powered 2tb USB 3 drives for a 4tb main volume, and a single external 5tb USB 3 drive for Time Machine backups, plus a 6tb NAS as a second backup, but I'm in danger of outgrowing the 4tb main volume (and everything else as well soon after).
The thing is, I'd really like to not just upgrade capacity, but also add some redundancy on those directly attached drives.
So I've been looking for USB 3 drive enclosures, preferably supporting four or more disks, and ideally 2.5" disks so that the units can be as compact as possible, but I've been finding the pickings to be rather slim. There used to be the Drobo Mini, which I'd though I might get, but Drobo appear to have since discontinued this, so prices aren't great and items have dubious warranty coverage.
Are there any good multi-bay units out there? I'm willing to consider 3.5" units as well if there are better options, and four bays is just a minimum, but bearing in mind that I'd like something reasonably compact (unfortunately where I am space is at a premium). Any got anything like this that they're using?
Onboard RAID support would be great, but not a requirement, as I can always use AppleRAID or OpenZFS for combining disks; I realise over a single connection performance won't be amazing, but it just needs to be good enough for moving large files back and forth from time to time (we're talking maybe 1-5 gigabytes a day, but ever growing).
My system doesn't have Thunderbolt, and I'd prefer not to go the NAS route for a main volume as I have more than enough networking headaches as it is