CR-H458 USB 3.04 Bay RAID Enclosure

I own two of these. One I have had running 24/7 for at least four years with no issues at all running RAID 0. They are a little expensive though.RAID can be setup by switches on the back of the unit, the given app, or by Windows Storage. I have used all three methods and they work fine.It’s worth buying

control software works fine for my first 4 enclosurescontrol software crashes when I start my 5th enclosurecontrol software does not seem to have been updated since the first enclosure I bought back when these first came out under cutting the drobo in price.

I bought this to use as a media server for a HTPC that sits in my living room. CineRAID describe this drive as "super quiet", on their web site, and that was the reason that I bought this over the Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2 ProBox which is half the price, but looks to be very problematic when used with a Mac.The first unit I received was anything but quiet, in fact it was so load that I could hear it from the next room over. I called CineRAID's tech support and received a call back within fifteen minutes (very impressed) and spoke to someone who said that I should not be able to hear the fan over the sound of the drives. I was given two options, RMA the unit and get a refund and have all shipping paid by Amazon, or have them send me out a new fan which I could install myself, but void the warrantee. I chose to RMA the unit. After the purchase price was credited back to my account I purchased a second unit. As soon as it arrived I plugged it in to see if this one was quieter. Sadly It was just as noisy, so either I was unlucky and received two bad units, or my idea of super quiet and CineRAID's idea is very different.Not sure what to do now in order to build my quiet media server other than buy a three or four bay open drive dock and use ambient convection cooling.

I read all of the "One Star" reviews of this product before buying it and came to the conclusion that they were, by and large, cases of a one-off.I have been searching, for a couple of years now, for a substitution for a RAIDBank5 by Micronet. I reviewed the RB5 and gave it 5 stars because it is by far the best mid-priced external storage array I have ever used (I'm an IT consultant and manage dozens of business networks). Sadly, Micronet has stopped producing the RB5 and the few that can be found on the Internet are exorbitantly over-priced.I needed a solution for my media library and after studying the offerings at Amazon I settled on the TekRam CR-H458, and so far I am quite satisfied with the purchase. It has a rather large footprint compared to the RB5, which required some re-arrangement in my server cabinet, but it was a minor inconvenience. The case is solid and well made and the overall engineering is adequate. Understand that I am comparing this to the RB5 which I consider the gold standard, so despite some criticism I hold that the CR-H458 is an excellent solution.I purchased 4 Toshiba 3.5-Inch 2TB 7200 RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB DT01ACA200 hard disk drives for the unit and configured them as a RAID5. The unit is connected to an HP DL360 G5 server with a 4-Port LaCie Esata Pci-express Card to which the RB5 is also connected. Throughput is good and the connection is reliable. The unit has been online for 10 days and it has not timed out or dropped a connection. My KODI media center is experiencing no issues with search or playback. The unit is quiet and running quite cool.Configuration was simple and very straightforward. Upon inspection I found that the software that shipped with the unit was the same as that provided with the RB5, so installation was unnecessary. The pre-existing software recognized the CR-H458 as an additional controller and I was able to configure it from there.The software recognized the disk geometry without issue and updated the SMART database. It also e-mailed me indicating that a new unit, disks, and array were put into service. To be overly cautious (and also test the unit) I performed a low level format which took a couple hours. No issues whatsoever.ProsSolid construction on case and overall hardware.Quite and reliable.Dependable 24/7 operation.Easy setup and configuration.Cons (The reason for 4 stars instead of 5)The drive trays are a bit lightweight and drive alignment is tricky (Caution is recommended during insertion).Separate 12v power supply as opposed to standard molex connection at unit.All in all, this unit has been a pleasant surprise. Having been spoiled by the Micronet RAIDBank5 I was ready to be less than overwhelmed. I am happy to report that is not the case. I would recommend this unit to anyone looking to build, or expand, a media library or simply add capacity to their network.

The windows configuration software was a bit cheesy.After several months of use, and return for warranty, I can say that I am NOT happy with this enclosure. The USB 3 seems to not be stable when transferring large amounts of data.While I have never used a Drobo, I would consider it before purchasing one of these.

I picked this baby after extensive research of inexpensive RAID enclosures, and am very pleased with my purchase.The box is surprisingly solid--a seamless squared tube of aluminum suitable for something much more expensive. It is very quiet--a single large fan at the rear is barely audible, and the exhaust remains barely warm after hours of continuous writing.Set up was a breeze. I filled it with 4 of the 3TB Western Digital Red drives The tool-less bays slide out, and the drives snap right in, held by plastic clips. Slide them in, and they plug into the back plane--done. The instructions are basic, and perhaps not written by a native English-speaker, but they are adequate. I followed the two power-cycle raid setting process (one cycle to clear the old setting, one cycle to set the new one), and within a few minutes the box appeared on my Win7 machine, ready for action.The only hit was my 32-bit WinXP machine doesn't see it, but I understand that is a Windows limitation.Overall I am thrilled. I've only had it a month, but so far its great.

The read/write speeds are pretty good and it seems to be very reliable. I would buy this again.I have not tried to hot swap any drives - not sure that it is supported. I power down the unit, swap the drive, then power up again. There are dip switches on the back to control the power for individual bays but I have not used it.