External HDD enclosure - recommendations

Mac
#21

I’m going to send the Icy back and see what they say. (Just need to find the esata cable and manuals as they expect everything returned, and they are packed somewhere…) If I get another one, then that’s what happens. Will find a use for it.

When we get into our new house*… there’s a bunch of variables to consider. I may look at NAS then, particularly if there’s Ethernet already in the house - there was definitely 1 Ethernet cable sticking out of the wall in the rumpus room, but I can’t say I saw any others to know where it goes. Of course - it’ll be our house, so if I want to run Ethernet around, I can… but - the Ethernet-Over-Power boxes have been doing pretty well for me too… and… ahhhh options!!! :slight_smile:

  • The burst pipe caused over $80k worth of damage to the house we are buying. That’s the cost of replacing the flooring in 3 bedrooms + lounge + dining + hallway, plasterboard in all rooms effected, trims, 2 built in robes, redoing the power outlets/switches etc, and a new kitchen. The owners tried to convince us to take a payout/price reduction, and take on the repairs ourselves, but whilst we could then turn it into a remodelling exactly how we want, if we start the repairs and then find another $20k of unexpected damage - we’re responsible… So - now we’re stuck here, half packed, with an estimated 2-3 months for the repairs. We’re hoping as the owner is still paying the mortgage, they’ll be pushing to get the job started - its apparently only going to need 2 weeks to complete, but the builder has a backlog of jobs… We’re taking a risk going ahead with the purchase as we’re trusting the repairs are going to get all the effected materials cut out… not to mention whether there was any other damage we may not know about for some time to come… but - well, after 12 months of looking there was probably only 2 or 3 similar houses in our price range. At least we’re getting fresh flooring that we were looking at paying $12k for, fresh coat of paint, new kitchen… and then I’ll be back to only having to worry about how on earth I’m getting my pool table up stairs…
#22

Wow! Just as well it happened when it did rather than after you moved in!

I have one of these: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID Storage Enclosure
that is fitted with two 4TB drives in a RAID 0 (hardware RAID). I have been running this for almost 8 years with no problems. It is backed up regularly to two backup sets. It Reads & Writes at about 330MB/s on USB 3 which isn’t bad for a couple of hard drives. I haven’t tried the Thunderbolt because I don’t have a Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt 3 adapter. I was thinking about replacing the HDs with a couple of good quality, fast SSDs. Two 4TB SSDs is going to cost me a lot of money!

I have been looking at one of these: OWC Express 4M2
with 4 x 2TB M2 NVMe drives. Could possibly work out cheaper than the two 4TB SSDs.

The only thing I do that would benefit from faster storage is Photoshop & I was reading just recently that Photoshop can’t read or write to disk at much more than about 1GB/s.

Anyway, something to think about. I’ve never been really keen on NAS for some reason.

Sorry for hijacking your thread…

#23

Hi Cosmic. Do you have any updates on this?

#24

G’day @richard
Due to being half packed still, I haven’t got this resolved as yet.

However, thankfully, it has been behaving pretty well since the above issues. Even this morning although my Mini had crashed overnight, I just had to turn the Icy on/off, and it reconnected without any issues.

I’m wondering whether my failing 23" Cinema power brick was causing issues via the USB port… The USB ports on the back of the Display ceased working some time ago for reasons I could not work out. (I still had the USB cord plugged from the display into the Mini). Then about 2 weeks ago the main breaker of our house was turned off by some servicemen, and the power brick didn’t survive.

I bought another one off eBay, and now the USB slots on the back of the display are working again… maybe the brick was causing issues “into” the USB network…

Anyways - I’ll keep an eye on it, but I think I’m very close to 12 months now so may just have to wear it if problems persist.

That said - we’re hoping we are finally going to settle - repairs on our house are due to be completed on Friday next week!

#25

Wow, could have been the power brick then! I guess that’s the advantage of it not being built into the display.

#26

Good luck with the settlement. This must have been quite a trauma for you and your family.

#27

@richard - Yeah, I’m wondering now! Also good to have those ports available again on the back of the display, even though they are only USB2.

@snarl - It has been pretty frustrating… And there’s certainly still an element of - “What if they miss something, and we end up with a house full of mould…” I gather the builder will have some kind of culpability… The bright side of course - the downstairs is getting a good make over for free. But yeah the kids are well and truly over having most of their stuff in boxes.

#28

I’m starting to look for some sort of solid state enclosure for my Mac mini which I will replace with an M2 later on in the year. Haven’t seen anything that really jumps out at me yet.

#29

I wonder what enclosure ChatGPT would suggest. :slight_smile:

#30

I just tried this but it wasn’t very successful. Any good ones it recommended are no longer available!

#31

LOL I was just coming to post this!

ME:
Can you recommend a good solid state hard drive enclosure for a Mac

ChatGPT:
Certainly! There are a variety of solid state hard drive enclosures available on the market, but I can recommend a few options that are well-suited for use with a Mac:

OWC Envoy Pro: This enclosure is designed specifically for use with Macs and features a sleek aluminum design that complements the look of a Mac. It's compatible with both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C connections, and supports NVMe M.2 SSDs.

Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q: This enclosure also supports NVMe M.2 SSDs and features both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C connectivity. It has a rugged aluminum exterior for added durability.

CalDigit Tuff Nano: If you're looking for an enclosure that's particularly rugged and durable, the CalDigit Tuff Nano is a great option. It features a shock-resistant exterior and can withstand drops from up to 10 feet. It's also IP67 rated for dust and water resistance.

All of these enclosures should work well with a Mac and provide fast and reliable performance.

#32

I got the OWC one but not the other two…

#33

I’d love to know… Or rather, wish I had kept up with computer programming instead of giving it up in 1996 so that I could understand - what’s going on inside ChatGPT… :slight_smile:

As for the SSD enclosures… I know there’s a couple that keep coming up on eBay as being good mates for the Mac Mini… But no idea which one/s are actually any good.

#34

Yeah, I’m leaning towards one with NVMe drives but any that I’ve seen get good reviews don’t seem to be available anywhere.

#35

Something like this would be perfect but they don’t get great reviews especially because of fan noise:
OWC Express 4M2, which is unusual for OWC products. Like I said earlier, I have one of these: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual but to put two 4TB 2.5" SSd’s into it would be quite expensive and it’s not that fast. Four 2TB NVMe SSD’s would be cheaper & much faster. Anyway, I was going to use it as a backup drive. The other option is one of these: Mercury Pro U.2 Dual which is more complicated but possibly less expensive in the end.