TYHI from US on Oct.302011

4out of 5

I’ve used the INFOSAFE SAT3540ER since 2008 starting with 250GB drives and upgrading to 1.5TB drives (going to try 2GB drives shortly even though I think it is only guaranteed to support 4x1TB drives…already surpassed that benchmark). It provides fairly quick access for archiving and backup of my data and as a media bay for my movies (my 3y/o loves movies but had a habit of irreparably scratching them when he would try to load one on his own thereby adding to our decorative coaster collection…problem solved). I’ve contacted their tech support once via email and received a quick and competent reply.

The fan on the unit is not noticeable when mounted on top of our media PC next to our TV. If you place it next to the desktop (homebuilt), you can hear it if you really concentrate on listening for it, though, usually the desktop fans drown out the noise on the SAT3540ER. On the other hand, I do find the fan on the power supply somewhat irritating when everything is off since it continues to run unless you switch off the outlet (solved this issue with a green power supply that shuts down all slave outlets when the computer shuts down).

Haven’t had any issues with drives burning out or failing so the case fan appears to be doing its job. I recently purchased another SAT3540ER to dissect from a user who sold it because of a failing case fan (actually, it appears to never have been cleaned and may be bogging it down). If all goes well, plan on seeing if I can upgrade the fan. Don’t really plan on using this one unless my other one fails. Maybe use as a spare parts bin since you can’t get spare parts or upgrades like the Burly Box (of course, it also costs less than half of what a Burly Box costs).

On a final note, you won’t be disappointed so long as you don’t think you are buying a Burly Box. It’s an economical and capable little cousin (a fairly distant cousin) to the Cadillac of enclosures.

Originally posted at Buzzillions.com (legalese)

StarTech SAT3540ER 4-Bay Hard Drive Enclosure
The InfoSafe 4 Drive External SATA (eSATA) Multi RAID hard drive enclosure provides robust functionality and configurability to create the ideal external RAID storage solution. Capable of housing up to four SATA removable hard drives at up to 1TB capacity per drive (for a total of up to four Teraby…