Comments on: Multi-bay eSATA enclosure

By: D.Kwan

D.Kwan — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:18:12 +0000

Warning: SiI 3132 has an updated Mac driver, version 1.2.3.0, but after I installed it my T5 drives wouldn’t mount. Reverted to version 1.1.11 but the drives still won’t mount. I can’t figure it out. Gonna move my disks to another box and hope that the JBOD setups remain intact.

By: um

um — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:24:53 +0000

@skipvideo: did you say formatted? Raids only need to initialize the added disk/drive and expand the array, based on the number “3” i assume you mean raid 5. Dont know if sil / steelvine support online capacity expansion/migration but when you say format, usally means you erased your data. try removing the new drive, then rebuild the array you had before exact spec including raid stripe/chunk size (probably default) and see if your data returns if not try some simple undelete tool/program . Good luck. PS: if your letting the readers know that if you plan on adding drives as time goes on, raid 0,5 is not recommended Good for you. raid 1 for any number of drives should be fine as well as 10 for even number. And of course JBOD, Single. “smile”.

By: D.Kwan

D.Kwan — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:36:07 +0000

Sorry, no idea. Hopefully someone can help.

By: skipsvideo

skipsvideo — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:46:00 +0000

I know this thread is over a year old, but I have some new light to shine on the subject about the venus t-5. I read all the reviews and such and decided for me, it was a great solution for just backing up my internal RAID config in my Mac Pro. However, by the time I bought it and it arrived I had updated to 10.6 (now running 10.6.2) and at first all was fine.

I set it up and had a few kernel panics until I tracked down the most current driver for SIL-3132 chipset on my eSATA card. fixed. Then, the SIL-4726 manager was easy enough to configure a RAID then disk utility read it as a single drive. Formatted it, voila! all was good. Then I backed up all the data to the new RAID.

Next came the problems. I built the RAID using only 3 drives, so I have 2 open bays in the T-5. I added another drive, then used 4726 manager to configure it, disk utility saw, it and formatted fine. After a restart, they no longer mount. Now I’m stuck with all the data on the t-5 but unable to mount it anymore.

If you (Daniel) or anyone else has any experience here I’d like some advice. Thanks!

By: TedH

TedH — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:17:37 +0000

I also have had a T5 for about 1.5 months using with Vista x64. Very easy to set up but I’ve had a couple of issues since. Twice it has stopped working. The included software will talk to it and it see’s the drives but Vista only see’s one and it has a communication error. The first time I reseated each drive and monkey’d around with it and it up and started working again.
A couple days ago it did it again. This time it was much more difficult to get working again. I tried all the latest drivers, bios updates on the Sil card, etc. Long story short I had to flash the bios in the 4726 manager (the T5 itself) with the same version that was in it and bada-bing she started working again. The only other thing I will say is that I do turn it off at night as the cost of electricity in CA is very high. I.e. with my current tiered rate it costs over $500/year if I left it running 24x7. That is based on actual wattage and not nameplate…

By: DanW

DanW — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:03:04 +0000

I have one of these and the sound is a little bothersome. Kevin I think it is cool that you modified your t5. I want to do the same. So a 20mm fan with which type of connector do you think would work? I do not know a thing about fans so any help is greatly appreciated.

Also did anyone think that the esata express card runs a little hot?

By: D.Kwan

D.Kwan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:38:28 +0000

Thanks for that info Kevin.

By: Mike in NC

Mike in NC — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:42:13 +0000

Kevin, thanks for the info. It’s disappointing that enclosure mfgrs think noise doesn’t matter — and also that they use oddball fans and connectors! I changed the 40mm fan in my smaller external case (Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UT+) It was quite a disassembly job, & then I had to solder their oddball connector onto the new fan. The unit works fine but gives error messages occasionally — possibly because I replaced a 3-wire fan with a 2-wire one. The ironic thing is, the Sythe fan cost me $5 at retail! It would have cost them nothing to design the unit with a quieter fan!

By: Kevin Gearhardt

Kevin Gearhardt — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:16:47 +0000

I now have 3 of these enclosures running on a Windows (sorry! :) PC in my study. So as you might imagine having all 3 running at the same time creates a lot of fan noise, even with the speed set at low. So I thought I’d replace the fans and ordered myself 6 Scythe Kama Flow 80mm fans. But when I went to do the installation on the first of my 3 DS2350 enclosures I ran into 2 problems.

1) The original fans are 20mm thick whereas the Scythes are 25mm. That creates a very tight fit in the enclosure and the fan connectors actually interfere with one of the fans. Might have to cut off one corner of the fan case to get it to fit, or possibly mount the fans on the exterior of the enclosure (not the best look).

2) Just when I decided I could make the 25mm thickness work I discovered that the fan connectors on the OEM fans are NOT the same as the 3-pin connector on the Scythe (or other) case fans. That was a show stopper for me the other evening. So to make it work I’ll have to cut/solder the original connectors to the Scythe fans or possibly try moving the connector sleeves from the Scythe 3-pin molded connector to the OEM connector.

Just a heads up if you’re considering replacing the fans in one of these enclosures. Other than the fan noise I’m reasonably satisfied with these boxes, especially for the price.

By: D.Kwan

D.Kwan — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:53:06 +0000

Ok Ben I've posted pics here. But really though, when I copied stuff for hours the unit didn't even get warm, so I don't think there should be any heat issues.