MAIWO Hard Drive RAID Enclosure Dual Bay for 2.5 Inch SATA SSD HDD, USB 3.1 GEN 2 10Gbps with UASP, RAID 0/1/JBOD/PM, 16TB Capacity, External Hard Drive Reader Case Aluminum

I don't have a need for another RAID unit per-se. But I've accumulated lots of laptop hard drives over the years. Seemed wasteful to just toss them. So what do I do with them? I use this unit in large drive mode, and use old drives as scratch space. Like temporary quick storage for media files on the go. Large mode means that you get 1 big drive. 1TB + 250GB drives get you a virtual 1.25TB drive with this unit. I just run the drives until one of them finally dies. Figure out which one is bad, get rid of it, reset, reformat and keep going. It just works. And I feel like I'm not wasting old hardware.

Initial impressions are good. It has a nice aluminum case, and the entire thing is very compact, yet holds 2 SSD's. It comes with 2 cables: 1 USB3.0 for the data transfers and 1 micro USB for additional power that you probably won't need. It also comes with 4 screws a small screw driver so you can attach the drives to the tray (optional), and secure the tray to the aluminum case. I had a practically identical product with the Vantec Nexstar GX, but I had to return it because it just wouldn't work reliably. Interesting to me is that the Vantec Nexstar has alot more purchases and reviews and even has the Amazon Choice tag, but I had alot of problems with it. Maybe I just got a bad unit. So far this Maiwo unit is working the way I hoped that the Vantec Nexstar GX would work, and has the same (maybe even slightly better) build quality. It was also alittle bit cheaper than the Vantec. This is just an early impressions, and I only have 1 SSD in the unit right now for testing purposes. At this point, the only thing I would change is I would add a power button so I can leave it plugged in to my USB hub but still disconnect it and turn it off when not in use.

Have two of these units I use on my server (small brick n100 with Ubuntu server). One has 2x 2TB ssds as separate mounts and the other is a 256gb mirror for important stuff. Price was good and they serve their purpose. Might not be the fastest but your not paying top dollar either.

Please do not buy. I worked with two of these "raid0" drives for over a week. The simple instructions do not work. The reset button seems meaning less. The system boots up with either all three blue LEDs on or sometimes with only the "Large" mode. No matter where you place the small white switches the reset button has no effect. By separately formatting the two drives on a different system then placing them back in this system you have some hope on a power cycle to get it to "raid0" mode. The system seems to work for a short time. Once you power off/on you have to start all over. The system seems to once again forget what mode your are in. It starts up often in the "Large" mode even though the switches are set for the "raid0" mode. Re-format the drives is needed to start over again. Once again the system seems to work for a short time, but eventually fails to mount the drives. Windows returns an error that "the device is not ready". Disk Manager just shows the system as "unknown" with no disk size displayed. The system also has a "raid1" mode, which seems to be impossible to ever select. As an added feature, I do not know why, but it jams any local wireless mouse hookups. This was tested on two different PC system. I have tried this disk drive unit with both unformatted and formatted drives with similar results. All 4 disks that I used for testing were New. All disks were the same size and same name brand. Just a follow up. Please do not buy these. Once I got them running I left them powered on continuously to see how long they would last. Both of the drive enclosures lasted only 4 months. Both apparently have burnt out the same way. No indicator LED, disk appear to be spinning but no response. Both appear dead.

<update> I've forgotten that these DYI enclosures have lead to tears. I was looking forward to happily using my 4tb drives and forgot the bad of the past. The faster drives with the enclosure had my Mac warning me "Disk Not Ejected Properly" see attached. It ejected itself, and seemed to corrupt the contents, both in "Large" and "Normal" modes. It seemed intent on going to sleep would be my guess. No dashboard, so I'm not sure. Returned. I've ordered an assembled WD 2GB drive and will be using it. Cost the same as these 2 enclosures. </update> Sadly Drobo Inc (or their parent company) has failed me the dashboard hasn't been updated for MacOS Ventura, so I'm moving on, Beyond RAID or Beyond DROBO (hehe). I'm not sure if I need a RAID. I'm moving my User Folder off of the internal drive on one of these units using the 4X1TB drives from the Drobo. in Large mode. And will have 4TB on 2 drives for backups. I have an existing drive. Playing around with the switch settings last night left me with nothing that would mount, the instructions are hard to read and unusable. I went to bed. This morning they both work (after resetting them). RAID 0 doesn't seem to work for me (see screenshots Raid 0 on the left) perhaps I need to buy faster drives. Opened box, nice presentation tray with enclosure wrapped in plastic. Remove plastic and "Sled" falls out of "Tube". Lift plastic tray and there's a lot of stuff, 4 screws (2 long, 2 short), UBS 3 cable (Data) USB 2 cable (data), and 2 screwdrivers. Bagged nicely. Popped drives in "Sled" plugged used long screws to stabilize drives (1 each), into Mac received "disk unreadable" error (good), put "Sled" in "Tube", put screws in, plugged in and formatted. Good: Inexpensive and fits what I want. Solid box when installed, easy assembly. Metal on outside. Bad: "Sled" is plastic, DIP switches seem fragile, be careful. Not quite sure how to reset drives, but I have them in Large Mode, which is what I wanted. LEDs flicker when you eject the disk, but stay on after, so you're not sure if they are unmounted. No feet on drive. I'll add some. LEDs don't tell you drive is sleeping. Bad documentation. YMMV: LEDs are not too bright, but can't seem them on the shelf under my desk(where they will live, vertical). When not sleeping , they run warm. Don't know if my user folder will allow it to sleep. Satisfied.

Raid is something I MUST have and this case does exactly what I need it to do. It's been in play for a couple months now and I use Veeam Agent to backup daily. I actually tested the mirror raid by removing one drive and it worked seamlessly. The all metal casing is sturdy and well made. For this price I think I got a fantastic product.

I can only assume the previous reviewers are the type if people that buy something and are happy if it works. Does this "work?" Yes. But it does not work well. It does not transfer anywhere close to as it should, and I have to say this is garbage tier hardware. I was planning on installing my Steam library on 2x4 samsung 4tb SSDs, but it cant even seem to make it through one game install without clapping out and needing to be unplugged and plugged back in. The sustained data transfer is such that the device really isn't an upgrade from my existing WD Red 14tb in an external case

This case is build great. Easy hard drive install. Setting up mode is super easy. Good speeds. Works Excellent! Couldn't ask for a better hard drive enclosure!