This Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2 ProBox 4 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure is one of the very few enclosures available that does not try to be a NAS or RAID device and is simply an external JBOD enclosure that connects to my workstation with either eSATA or USB connectors. This is exactly what I wanted, a simple JBOD enclosure that I can manage with the extensive software tools supplied by Linux.
I installed 3TB HDDs into 2 of the 4 drive bays; they just snap in with the supplied handles that are screwed to the front-most mounting hole locations on the drive. The handle is used to sort of lock the drives in place and is used to leverage them out upon removal. I plugged the USB cable into my USB 3.0 hub, plugged in the power supply and turned on the device. Linux recognized the new drives immediately.
I created a Volume Group from those two drives using the Linux LVM facilities and allocated a single large logical volume which gives me about 5.7TB of free space for backups. After a bit of testing, I have now been creating my backups directly onto this device for 8 days now with no problems.
I like the multiple speed options for the cooling fan, three set speeds and an auto speed setting. The room in which I keep all of my computers and their many ancillary devices can get quite warm until I turn on the A/C. I set the fan on auto speed control and it pretty much stays on high all the time right now.
Both eSATA and USB 3 cables were supplied with the device, as well as a brick power supply that plugs into the right rear of the enclosure as you look at it from the front. If I needed to stack a bunch of these next to each other on a shelf that might be a problem, but it does not create an issue for me at this time as I only have one of these enclosures - and I suspect that will be all I need for some time to come. This side-mounted power connector is the only reason I did not [originally] give this device a 5-star rating - for the potential issues it might cause with side-by-side arrangements. I would have given it a 4.9 if I could have.
Overall an excellent product that does exactly what I need.
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Update May, 10, 2014
It pays to have good backups. Last evening, while trying to open a web site, I started getting errors with Firefox. The reason is that the 1.5TB hard drive containing my home directory had started failing and Linux, as it is designed to do, remounted the home directory filesystem as read-only to prevent any further potential data corruption. Linux would not even recognize the hard drive and, when testing it later, it would not even initialize and the heads kept seeking as it tried to perform its startup routines.
Fortunately I had a spare drive. Without going into the gory details, I installed the replacement hard drive, created a Physical Volume, and then a Volume Group encompassing the entire hard drive. I then created a mew home Logical Volume, formatted it as EXT4 and mounted it on /home.
At that point I mounted the ProBox on /media and simply copied the backed up files back into my /home directory. I then did the same for the other two filesystems that had been on the original drive.
Using the USB3 connection, it took only about 55 minutes to restore the very large amount of data I have in my /home directory and the other two filesystems. We are talking a total of about 300GB of data.
For you Linux geeks, this is why I put the OS on one hard drive and my home directory and other non-OS filesystems on a different hard drive. Makes recovery so much easier.
So this is why I purchased the ProBox device in the first place and it worked beautifully and exactly the way I expected when I set it up the way I did. In the past, I have had to restore individual files from the ProBox, but this is the first major disaster I have had since I purchased it.
As a result of my recovery experience I have upgraded my rating of this product to 5 stars, although I still have very minor concern about the side-mounted power connector causing problems with side-by-side installations in tight quarters.
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This item: Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 PRORAID 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA
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This Item  Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 PRORAID 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA |  |  |  |  | ![SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay-Flat Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP] (EC-DFLT)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Ffqd8GUUL._AC_.jpg) | |
| Price | $149.99 | -17% $99.99 List: $119.99 | $59.99 | $129.99 | $92.00 | -30% $27.99 List: $39.99 |
| Delivery | Get it as soon as Monday, Sep 2 | Get it as soon as Monday, Sep 2 | Get it as soon as Friday, Aug 30 | Get it as soon as Monday, Sep 2 | Get it as soon as Friday, Aug 30 | Get it as soon as Friday, Aug 30 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Sold By | Mediasonic Store | Mediasonic Store | Cenmate | Cenmate | CICHENG INC | Store4PC |
| hardware interface | usb3.0, esata | sata 6 0 gb, usb3.0, esata | usb3.0 | usb3.0, esata | sata 6 0 gb | usb, usb3.2 gen 1, sata 1 5 gb, sata 3 0 gb |
| brand | Mediasonic | Mediasonic | cenmate | cenmate | rackchoice | SABRENT |
| hardware platform | PC, Mac, Unix, Linux | PC | Mac | Windows MAC Linux | Windows | PC | Windows |
| material | Metal | Metal | Aluminum | Aluminum | Metal | Single Bay |
From the manufacturer
Product Feature:
- Support 3.5" SATA I / II / III hard disk drive up to 20 TB per drive, and up to 4 x 20TB. (Not compatible with 4Kn Native Drives, and Power Disable feature HDD's) Example: WD / HGST Enterprise Drives.
- Support 2.5" SATA SSD / HDD up to 12TB per drive. (Adapter Bracket required, sold separately.)
- Hardware Raid controller built-in on board.
- Transfer rate up to 5.0Gbps via USB 3.0 and up to 3.0Gbps via eSATA (SATA II speed).
- Smart Fan with built-in temperature sensor, Auto & Manual modes, and 3 speed levels
- Support S.M.A.R.T
- Support Power Synchronization with Computer.
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Raid Mode Support
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Raid Mode Support
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Smart Fan Feature & S.M.A.R.T.
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USB 3.0 & eSATA Interface
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Important Notes:
- Enclosure is not default to any Raid mode. Please set up your desired Raid Mode, or the enclosure will turn off after few seconds after it turned on.
- Raid mode confirmation button is at the back of the enclosure. Please see picture on the left.
- If this unit is connected to eSATA port, please make sure your computer eSATA port support Port-Multiplier.
- Mediasonic strongly recommend user to install same capacity / model / brand of hard drive when you are setting Raid Mode. (Except Single Mode).
- User can download user manual and QIG from Technical Specification in Product information below.
Supporting Operating System
- Windows 10 / 11 (32 / 64bit) (GPT Partition)
- Mac OSX 10.8 or later
- Does NOT support Linux
- Please Contact Mediasonic Store via Amazon message system for any Service & Return issue
Raid Mode Transfer Rate
- When this unit is in Raid Mode, the hard drive transfer rate is set at SATA 2 speed (3.0Gbps). Therefore, the transfer rate for USB 3.0 / eSATA connection will be limited to 3.0Gbps.
- This limitation is due to the chipset, and no firmware fix.
- However, when this unit is in Single mode (4 independent hdd setting), the hard drive transfer rate will support SATA 3 speed, up to (5.0Gbps) for USB 3.0
Latest Update Information
- September 2019
- Support 20TB hard drive for 2022 purchased
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| HFR2-SU3S2 | HFR7-SU31CH | HFR7-SU31CD | HUR5-SU31C | HUR6-SU31C | |
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| Customer Reviews |
4,047
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4,047
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35
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165
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| Price | $149.99 | $159.99 | $289.99 | $79.99 | — |
| Number of Bay | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Hardware Embedded Raid | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Interface | USB 3.0 & eSATA | USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C | USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C | USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C | USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C |
| USB Hub Feature | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Power Delivery 3.0 | ✓ | ||||
| 4K HDMI Extender | ✓ | ||||
| SD Card Slot | ✓ | ||||
| Samrt Fan & Power Sync | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
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Customer Review: Quality has dropped. - fixed
Charles
Reviews with images
Installing the drive into the enclosure was pretty simple, just screw the handle onto the front ...
Mediasonic makes these in several different models. They have the NON-Raid version, and the Raid version of the 4 bay enclosure. The only difference is, the hardware Raid version allows you to create an array using the box itself. The NON-Raid version won't have the hardware to do it, however, if connected to a Windows or MAC, you can use software to create your raid array in the enclosure. I only mention this to be thorough, as I have no interest in Raid.When my Western Digital Black 2TB 7200 RPM SATA III drive was in a Windows machine, I partitioned it into two, with each partition being 1TB each, actual size around 950GB. Installing the drive into the enclosure was pretty simple, just screw the handle onto the front of the drive, pop the bay doors open, luckily we didn't need HAL to do that for us. Remove the pressure plate, stick the drive in, replace pressure plate, close the bay doors. Plug in your USB cable or ESATA cable, plug in the power and go.I feel the need to mention though however, if your planning to use ESATA, please understand that most onboard ESATA ports do not support port multiplier. If you fully populate the enclosure with 4 drives, in order to see 4 separate drives load in your OS, you will need to have port multiplier ability, which usually isn't found in motherboards, so you will have to purchase an ESATA card to put in your machine that does support it.However, if your going to be using the USB connection, you don't have to worry about that. I have my drive enclosure plugged into my router via USB. This enclosure has a SYNC button and an INTERFACE button. The enclosure selects USB by default, but if you need ESATA, you will have to press and hold the SYNC button to make your choice. Also, the enclosure has a built in sleep features.By holding down the Interface button, you can select which mode you want. When the interface indicator is blue, it means that when computer is powered off, the enclosure will power off in 15-seconds. And if you turn you computer back on, the enclosure won't come back on. If you want the enclosure to be in perfect sync with your computer, press and hold the INTERFACE button until the indicator is orange.Since I am using this with my router, I need my files to be able to be accessed at all times by any computer on the network. So to make sure the enclosure stays on no matter what, I had to hold the INTERFACE button each time until I turned the indicator completely off, hence clear. This way it will stay on until I hit the power button to turn it off, or the power goes out. Another thing this enclosure has is a smart fan feature.You are offered three levels of fan modes that you can either set manually, or set to smart auto. Fan speed 1 is very loud, like a freight train, but provides the most airflow. Fan speed 2 is a lot less noisy but is noticeable. And Fan speed 3 is silent. I keep my fan setting on Auto, and it never razes the fan speed beyond fan speed 3. So lets talk about file transfer speeds...I have a Netgear N600 WND4500-V3 router. I did some research into Readyshare and learned that the software in the router has a speed limiting bug in them that limits the speed you will get in file transfers. In other words, don't expect 5GBPS on USB 3.0 cause thats not going to happen. Also, your going to loose some in the transfer link between the drive itself and the enclosure, before its sent to the router, then finally to your computer on your gigabit network.For a speed reference, when I plug my Cannon A2300 camera into my notebook computer using USB 3.0, my file transfer speed is 10 megabytes per second. When reading from my new drive enclosure, copying a 4.1GB file to my notebook, I am getting 13.8 megabytes per second. However, when transferring that same 4.1GB file to my drive in the enclosure, I get around 14.5 megabytes per second.Usually in most cases, read speeds will exceed writing speeds, at least it does with SSD drives and other based flash drive media. But with this 7200 RPM mechanical drive that has 64MB cash, it seems to like writing more then it does reading. I have got to believe that this is somehow related to the 64MB cash buffer, but I could be wrong. I also love the pretty blue lights on the drive, although they might be too bright if you have this placed in a bedroom or movie room.So far I haven't had any trouble with it, and setting up Readyshare was super simple in my router configuration. Also the build quality of the box is pretty solid, it weighs a lot more then I thought it would. No doubt most of the weight is in the PSU and the metal casing of the enclosure. Very little plastic is on this thing and thats good. As long as you know how to set this up, it should work for you.5 out of 5UPDATE: Dec 2nd 2017Since I have owned and have been running this box for a year now, I wanted to give an update on how its doing. I have still been using the same hard drive, in my enclosure, and have not added any new drives to it. This unit has been running strong the whole year, and I haven't had any problems with it. I am able to access my files whenever I want to without issue. We have had a few power outages since, and all one has to do is hit the power button to turn it back on and wait for the drive/drives to spin up.I never did cover up the blue LED's that seem to bother most people. Again the box is located in my computer room, not my bedroom, so it doesn't matter to me. I do notice a slight build up of dust, around the exterior fan casing, I have not cleaned the box out with compressed air yet, but I probably should do that soon. I run an air filter machine in my computer room, which I hope, reduces the amount of dust that builds up, in my electronics.Some have also talked about replacing their internal fan to something much quieter. You can do this, but please note that the box uses a 2-pin fan connection which is not standard. So, you would more then likely need a 2 to 3 pin fan adapter, in order to use a 3rd party fan. I still to this day highly recommend this enclosure, and I still keep it at a solid 5 out of 5 stars!UPDATE: Dec 1st 2018Here we are yet another year of use on this box. I have to say, putting aside speed limitations with my setup, I've been really happy with this unit. The most important aspect of something like this, is that its reliable, because you want your files to not only be safe, but you also want to be able to access them whenever you want. I am happy to report that after 2-years of use, this box has been very reliable, and I haven't had any issues with it.I really like those Western Digital Black drives, they seem to be reliable as well for this use. I did end up blowing out the rear fan last year, only had to do that once. And its probably about time for me to clean out the fan again since its been another year, I'll get to it eventually lol. Oh and thats another thing, I've just proven with just some miner air filtration in the room, and some once per year maintenance, that fan has been lasting 2-years without fail.Additionally, none of the lights on the box have failed yet that I can see. Sometimes when you get those cheap LED's they will fail quickly. I haven't had any problems with this box so honestly, 99 dollars still to this day, and 2-years of service with more on the way, I think that is a great deal. Someone asked me about RAID recently. Again, as I've stated in this review, you can't setup hardware RAID with this box. If you really need RAID, its best to get the RAID version of this box.https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProRaid-HFR7-SU3S2-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B0757YTWS7/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1543555136&sr=8-2&keywords=mediasonic+probox+raid
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2014
Top reviews from other countries
dandy
Are my performance expectations too high?
Reviewed in Canada on April 19, 2024Model: HFR2-SU3S2Verified Purchase
imfallen_angel
I've had 4 Mediasonic 4-bay boxes for over 10 years, and only had to replace one.
Reviewed in Canada on August 2, 2023Model: HF2-SU3S3Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
Great USB storage enclosure -- please read my review if using with an AMD-based system in Linux
Reviewed in Canada on March 23, 2023Model: HF7-SU31CVerified Purchase
....
Very Quiet, Works with S.M.A.R.T Data
Reviewed in Canada on January 10, 2022Model: 4 Bay Raid USB 3.1 Type CVerified Purchase
