Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4M 4 Bay SATA to eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD/RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5 Enclosure (Silver)

by Sans Digital

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 10 x 7.1 inches ; 7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000YTRYEM
• Item model number: TR4M
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 1, 2007

Product Description

The TowerRAID TR4M is a compact RAID tower utilizing the latest SATA II port feature, where one single eSATA cable connects to four 3Gpps SATA II hard drives. Designed with easy installation in mind, the trayless TR4M allows instant installation by simply inserting the hard drives after opening the protective ventilating cover. It supports JBOD and Spanning modes for instant storage expansion. It also supports RAID 0, 1 0+1, 5, 5+spare via included software utility, for high performance and hard drive redundancy. The package includes a 2-port eSATA PCIe card at no additional cost, which allows the connection between two TR4M units (up to 8 hard drives) using only two cables. PCI/PCI-X options are also available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mac OS/X users avoid this one!, February 27, 2009

By 

Distorted Loop - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4M 4 Bay SATA to eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD/RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5 Enclosure (Silver) (Personal Computers)

I purchased this one to go with my Mac Pro (1,1). It seemed like a great deal, with sharp looks similar to the Mac Pro, and an included PCIe eSATA adapter card.

The device is sturdily built, and is probably a great companion for a Windows box, but if you're using a Mac Pro, forget this thing. I had nothing but problems with it and had to return it and restore my system to get rid of the drivers and software it put on my machine. Restore may have been drastic, but my cloned backup was handy and seemed easier than tracking down what this thing installs and removing by hand (there is no uninstall package).

Here are the issues:

1) the RAID drivers it uses run under Rosetta, they are not native to OS X intel operating system.

2) this is the big one, the RAID drivers it uses are not from the manufacturer, they are from Silicon Image, and Silicon Image drivers currently only support OS x 10.5.1 or earlier. Let me repeat that, OS X 10.5.1 and earlier ONLY. Some people report success with them at higher levels of the OS, but most things I read said it causes kernel panics (it did for me) and all the manufacturer will reply to your complaints with is that the drivers only support 10.5.1 and to contact SI for newer ones. Contact SI and they send you back to the Sans Digital folks. My system had constant kernel panics and grey veils of death with the drivers installed. Sans Digital's advice at that point is to use a different branded controller card (see #3).

3) I liked the enclosure, and wanted to keep it, so I purchased a Sonnet Tempo E4P eSATA controller card with current OS X 10.5.6 drivers. Things seemed okay at first, but the Sans Digital TR4M eventually just goes offline, and this will cause your system to slow down or even freeze. You must power off the TR4M before the system recovers, and once you do that, the drives won't come back on for OS X; they'll list in Finder, but click on them and your Finder crashes.

I ended up replacing this with an Icy Dock eSATA enclosure.

I'd like to give the device a single star, but that wouldn't be fair, since it probably works just fine with Windows XP machines, so it gets 3 stars for construction, price and looks.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overpriced but a solid and efficient solution, January 24, 2009

By 

Andrew Zmolek (Highlands Ranch, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4M 4 Bay SATA to eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD/RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5 Enclosure (Silver) (Personal Computers)

I don't know why these port multipliers are so hard to find - you'd think the Taiwanese manufacturers would be all over them at cut-rate pirces - Sans Digital must have quite a margin - but the ability to multiplex 4 SATA drives on a single eSATA link is absolutely essential. If you're going to set up RAID volumes at home, this is the way to go - easy to access and swap, some airflow (there's room for improvement there), and clear status lights. If you can find it, get the TR5M version - the Silicon Image chip supports a 5:1 multiplier and it gives you more flexibility.

5.0 out of 5 stars Works great, October 4, 2010

By 

swingy (Oregon) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4M 4 Bay SATA to eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD/RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5 Enclosure (Silver) (Personal Computers)

This item works great. The "flimsy" cable was not an issue for me, and it is a very fast product as well.