External 6-8 HDD enclosures?

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kiwifidget

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#319812 5-Jun-2025 08:32

I am scouting around for an external enclosure to hold 6-8 3.5" HDDs, to connect to a Win11 PC running Stablebit Drivepool.

Preferably a USB-C connection, but I'll settle for USB3.

No raid required, just JBOD of mixed capacity drives.

Purpose of said setup is to be a cheap-ish copy of the data on a Synology NAS.

The current solution is running on a Win10 PC that does not meet the requirements for Win11, with a 4-bay internal drive cage, and a 4-bay Orico external drive caddy.

I have a Win11 PC but the internal drive cage wont fit in it.

PBtech have these Yottamaster things:

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/ENCYTM510033/Yottamaster-Hard-Drive-Enclosure---Aluminum-5-Bay

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/ENCYTM510021/Yottamaster-Hard-Drive-Enclosure--5-Bay-35-inch-No

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/ENCYTM410022/Yottamaster-Hard-Drive-Enclosure--USB--C-31-Gen-2

Would need more than 1, and the USB-C ones can at least daisy chain together.

Or there is this thing:

https://www.qnapsource.nz/product/qnap-tl-d800c/

Everything I read here seems to suggest it can do what I need, but I cant see it explicitly mentioned.

Has anyone used this unit as external storage for a Windows PC?

Is there anything else out there that has eluded my googling?

Budget is sub-$1000, I have seen several units in the many thousands but thats not where I'm at.

Thanks.

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#3380635 5-Jun-2025 09:16

Any particular reason why you're avoiding NAS?

You can use iSCSI to connect Windows clients to the disks.

richms

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#3380646 5-Jun-2025 10:20

Best is to find an ex datacenter SAS expander and get an LSI card and cable.

Just check that whatever you get doesn't have a single USB to SATA chip and then an expander on that. Speeds are crap with expanders if you are hitting more than one drive at a time as it seems to have to finish working with one drive before it can switch to talking to another.

I have had a bad run with orico external boxes in the past where things would just timeout and go offline, problems all stopped when the drives were moved into a sas expander instead.

Richard rich.ms

kiwifidget

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#3380698 5-Jun-2025 10:58

SirHumphreyAppleby:

Any particular reason why you're avoiding NAS?

You can use iSCSI to connect Windows clients to the disks.

I'm not avoiding a NAS, I'm avoiding another NAS.

I had a Drobo once, loved it, but then one day it died.

I replaced it with another Drobo, and a PC that does a once a day replication of the NAS files to its own storage, because every day is a school day.

Then the second Drobo died, and I replaced that with a Synology, copied the files over from the PC and carried on.

Now that PC needs replacing. And I need to fit more drives.

It does not need to be fast, just capable and a bit reliable.

It's sole job is to "be there" if the NAS has a massive malfunction.

I'm comfortable with Drivepool, have a license, and would like to continue using it.

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mentalinc

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#3381032 6-Jun-2025 08:16

You can still use Drivepool if you use the expander as proposed above, they are presented to windows as JSOD

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CYaBro

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#3381048 6-Jun-2025 09:09

Not big enough for you but I have a 5 disk Yottamaster USB-C housing and it works well.

I'm just using Windows Storage Spaces to manage the disks.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WQX64SW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

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