Mediasonic PRORAID 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA 12TB Support (HFR7-SU3S2)

I've reached out to Mediasonic to resolve this issue, and I will update once that is resolved. It will be worth 5 stars if it is, because other than this issue the product seems great.I set up 4 8TB WD Red drives in a RAID-5 array. Read speeds are great, however I noticed while migrating data that the write speeds started off slow (~70MBps) and dropped to an insane ~5MBps with larger files once they hit a certain point (I'm not sure of the exact point, but probably somewhere around 3GB). (UPDATE: The threshold is actually 4GB)In reading the Mediasonic forums, it appears that drives larger than 6TB are only supported in HW Rev 3 of the product. The one I received is not Rev 3 (there is no revision noted on the back, exactly like the person who reported the issue in the forum). There is no indication of this issue in the product description or the manual that comes with the product - everything simply says that it supports drives up to 12TB. (UPDATE: Rev 3 only applies to the HFR2-SU3S2 so that is irrelevant to this issue)I've reached out to Mediasonic, and I'll update the review when that process is complete. I've heard good things about Mediasonic support, so I hope that the resolution will be a positive one rather than returning the product in favor of a different RAID solution altogether.UPDATE: After working with Mediasonic, I'm going to exchange the unit for another one. We ran through a ton of different troubleshooting steps, but to no avail. One thing to note is that the write speeds are the same whether I use eSATA or USB 3. That definitely points to something funky going on rather than an issue with, say, driver/firmware/chipset incompatibility. I'm still holding off changing the star rating until it's resolved one way or another.UPDATE 2: Replacing the unit did not resolve the issue. At this point I'm going to just deal with it and raise it to a 2-star review (I reserve 1-star reviews for stuff that is totally unusable and has to be returned).To sum up, I tried the unit connected to the following:- Built-in Marvell eSATA controller- PCIe ASMedia eSATA controller- Built-in USB 3.0 controllerThe write speeds, per AJA System Test, were 5-6MBps no matter how it was connected.I recreated the array per Mediasonic's suggestion, but that provided no improvement.The only thing that remained constant was the drives themselves, however I tested them in single mode and the write speeds were great. This is purely an issue with RAID-5 mode.Mediasonic support was great, even though my issue was not resolved. They definitely tried their best.UPDATE 3: After changing absolutely nothing, the write speeds have improved. While they're still not great (~30MBps in disk test tools, ~20MBps in real-world file copy tests), they're a fair sight better than they were.This makes the device eminently more usable, and I will add a star to my rating. The whole ordeal makes me wonder if there's something about this device that requires a couple of weeks to settle in before its I/O works up to its potential.UPDATE 3:I had to replace a failed hard disk in the RAID-5 array, and found another serious issue with the enclosure. Rebuilding takes forever, and renders the logical volume practically unusable. I thought it was just a quirk of my setup, but I found people on YouTube describing exactly the same thing.Mediasonic estimates about an hour to rebuild 200GB. My array is 24TB, so I'm looking at five days to complete the rebuild, and thus five days that the data on the array will be practically inaccessible. I should note that the data is *there*, it's just that both read and write are so slow that they cause timeouts for any applications that try to use data stored there.I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but I really hope that there isn't another drive failure in the insanely long time it's going to take this rebuild to finish.

I have the 2 bay unit and it is extremely fast. I'm a bit underwhelmed by my Proraid. It's not exactly fast. My disks are very fast when connected in RAID5 on a physical PC with a RAID controller, but this was to make it possible to use on more than one computer. Since it isn't that fast, we eventually put it on the network since having a gigabit Limit wouldn't matter, I can barely read and write to this thing at 25MB/s...Individually, the disks can Rad/Write at 155MB/s, in a RAID5 on a proper RAID controller, the read/write is 230MBs/90MBs respectively.In the Probox in RAID5 mode, the disks Read/Write continuously at 45MBs/27MBs with bursting to 150MBs/65MBs at the start of a file transfer.I gave 3 stars because even at the lower speed in the Probox, It still is only holding Media for a Plex server. So speed isn't a really high requirement only a preference for moving content to and from the unit. It works well, but isn't fast. Like a Toyota.

I bought a new computer and it did not have the storage space to put as many of my existing hard drives in the new computer but did not want to dump everything into my new computer either. I found the Mediasonic PRORAID 4 Bay (HFR7-SU3S2) on Amazon and hoped for the best as this was my first experience with this product. I must say it was very easy to install my hard drives in the 4 bay box and I was up and running in a matter of minutes. I do not use the RAID function yet as I just needed to see my drives like I had them in my old computer until I take off what I want to keep and then reformat the drives in a RAID configuration. One of the nice features is when my computer goes into sleep mode so does the Mediasonic PRORAID. hit the space bar and everything come back to life as it should. Very happy so far.

Had unit operational on Windows 10 with 4ea 2Tb drives, after 5 months it now powers itself off and is corrupting data on the drives. I have contacted Mediasonic, and asking for a replacement and will report here what they say regarding this issue. I have purchased Mediasonic Proraid boxes in the past and they all worked flawlessly. This is the first time I have had a failure. Could be a bad one or it could be a bad design or factory run. Hope Mediasonic stands behind their product.UPDATE - Mediasonic or Amazon, not sure which as I can't determine who sent me a brand new unit today! I have to say I am speechless, as I really had no expectation that my request would be taken seriously.....but apparently it was! Thank you for standing behind this product and making this customer very happy! I have updated my review rating to reflect the awesome customer service I have recieved. Thank you!!!!!!

I'm using my Proraid box (12v 5amp power supply) in raid 0 with 4 wd blue 1tb hard drives (.55 amp draw each) on a Xbox one. Raid 5 is safer but if a drive goes down I can just redownload the games. I set it up with my laptop (windows 7) and configured the bit rate for the drives. Then connected it to my Xbox one and formatted the Proraid (with hard drives inside). So for it seems to be just as fast as my Samsung EVO 500g SSD. At the time of purchase (3/17) a 1tb EVO 850 SSD was $325 and WD blue hard drives were $50 each. The fan noise is reasonable and the Proraid goes into sleep mode when I turn off my Xbox one. I AM NOT A COMPUTER EXPERT do your research and be aware of your amp draw. This setup fit my budget and I'm happy with the results.

First time using an external enclosure like this. Much easier to set up than I expected. Installed four 4 TB drives in raid 5 and copied almost 4 TBs of DATA right away, not a problem, not a hiccup. Using this to store media files connected via USB 3.0 to router. No problems accessing them from multiple devices, and much cheaper than a comparable NAS box. I split the copy operation, some while connected to eSATA and the rest VIA USB 3. USB 3 was about twice as fast copying DATA than eSATA.

Overally, I am happy with this box. I put four seagate barracuda's 3TB inside it, followed the instructions and within 5 minutes, I had a single raid5 disk show up. I put some test files on it, a few pictures and videos, then pulled out one drive at random. The error light lit up, but all the files were still there and I was able to open and play. The drive I pulled, I formatted directly on my computer and then put back in the box. The reason I am giving 4 stars and not 5, is that I was never able to rebuilt the set. The box recognized the new drive and the rebuild light lit up, and it started doing its thing, then it would complete, then start over, again and again. After 3 hours, it never finished. Maybe I didn't wait long enough, but the amount of data I had put on as a test was in the order of 50-60 Megabytes. The instructions say 1 hour per 200 Gb. I ended up hitting the button again and starting over. I am not so concerned for rebuilding as actually having the data there in case of failure. If/when that happens, I will copy to another disk and then replace the bad drive and start over. Speed is great, everything works well, compared to the alternatives which are much pricier. The single mode also works, in showing different drives individually, but then again, if you need that, get the box that doesn't have a raid controller built in.

Like the 4-bay enclosure this RAID box is easy to set up. Install the drives, plug it in, turn it on and format. Simple. There is a light on the front that turns on if a drive fails. Unfortunately there was no manual in the box so I don't know how to determine which specific drive has failed. That's why it only gets 4 stars.I have mine set up in a RAID 5 configuration with 4x3TB drives, for 9TB of total backup storage. Connectivity is USB-A 3.1, or SATA. This is plenty fast enough for a backup process that is running in the background.This, along with the HF2-SU31C 4-bay enclosure will work to form the essence of a mobile office with a Surface Book 2 as the computer.

Works OK but the SATA connection is a little flaky. Barely touch it and the unit disconnects.

I bought this unit to replace a JD Micron 4x Bay array for my home lab that the fan and the fan controller had died. I bought 4x Seagate Baracuda 1TB Compute HDD (ST1000DM010) to go with it. The installation of the disks in the frame is extremely simple using the supplied brackets and screw driver and the raid setup is idiot proof. It was up and running in 5 minutes (Ok 10 after unpacking). The only thing that is missing is a simple remote monitoring software which came with the JD Micron Unit. However, to my surprise, the JD Micron software was polling the USB 3 channel and is reporting accurately on the status of the Raid system, disks status, temperature, etc. That is a bonus.Performance are as expected from a USB 3 device and because of the better disks technology prove to be faster than the previous unit. Overall, a good buy!

Easy to instal just follow the provided instructions! Great box very durable! I have my 4-4tb drives running in Raid10 without an issue! This is exactly what you need!