DataTale raid enclosures review by MyMac

[Am Yisrael Chai!]

I have seen these enclosures discussed sparingly, but I have not seen a review by an American site. Here is a good review by MyMac.

http://www.mymac.com/2011/09/datatale-pair-and-smart-2-bay-raid-drive-enclosures-nemo-memo/#more-12797

I think it is nice that the company provides free Mac specific raid software for their products. Also, the design is nice as it would fit in quite well in a Mac Mini work space.

BTW, it is difficult to tell from the pic, but this unit does come with a top cover.


This one will power off of the firewire bus.

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Proud Cube owner. Oh, I also own a 2011 2.7ghz i7 Mac Mini.

[asmack]

I have the RS-M2QO 2-Bay model (the one with DIP switches which doesn't require software to configure). Works great. I only have two quibbles with the unit: (1) it doesn't go to sleep in JBOD mode and (2) the lights on the front of the unit are not labeled.

In RAID 0 and RAID 1 the unit has no sleep issues whatsoever and performs flawlessly.

The unit has a fan which is audible if you have it on your desk. It's not objectionable at all but it's definitely not as quiet as the Mac mini itself. As for design, it is very clean and sleek and matches well with the Mac mini, especially the ones from 2005-2009 (because of the white lid and trim).

The SmartGuider system is neat in that you don't have to touch the drives themselves while inserting and removing them from the RAID unit. You can buy extra SmartGuiders and also soft sleeves to carry the drives around when taking them offsite.

The cooling system is great. When I yanked a drive out from the DataTale after 30 minutes of intense use, it was cool to the touch. That same drive got very hot after similar use in my NewerTech Voyager Q.

The newer "smart" version of the DataTale 2-Bay RAID unit should be very similar, with the main difference being that you need to install their RAID Master software to configure the different RAID settings.

For me, I prefer the simplicity of DIP switches. The RAID Master software makes more sense in the 4-Bay model, where simple flip-switches are insufficient for the more advanced RAID settings.

[Am Yisrael Chai!]

I think their products look really slick. I hope they come out with a thunderbolt line soon.
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Proud Cube owner. Oh, I also own a 2011 2.7ghz i7 Mac Mini.

[asmack]

Here's some pics of my two Datatale RS-M2QO's. I've since switched them from JBOD mode to RAID 1 mode. Beside them are a OWC Mercury Pro 12x Blu-ray Pioneer BDR-206 External and two Wiebetech RTX100H-Q trayless hard drive enclosures.







The RTX100H-Q's keep my hard drives much cooler and physically protect them much better compared to the NewerTech Voyager Q's which I used to have. But the RTX100H-Q's are also way noisier than the Voyager Q's due to the loud fan. Good thing I only have them on when I am backing up or making a clone for offsite storage.

[Am Yisrael Chai!]

Thanks for sharing!
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Proud Cube owner. Oh, I also own a 2011 2.7ghz i7 Mac Mini.