Mediasonic Probox 8-bay 3.5" USB 3.0 / eSATA DAS Review
by Ganesh T S on August 4, 2012 7:55 AM ESTFinal Words:
As we come to the business end of the review, we will summarize the pros and cons of the Mediasonic Probox 8-bay JBOD unit first.
Pros:
- Provides quick access to upto eight 3.5" SATA HDDs
- Fulfills basic functionality without flaws and has decent performance
- Dual interface (eSATA and USB 3.0) support
- Automatic fan control and ability to turn on and off along with the PC
Cons:
- eSATA is unusable for configurations with more than one drive unless SATA controllers with port multiplier support are used. Even in that case, only add-on cards using the Silicon Image 3132 / 3124 controller can access all the eight drives using the port multiplier feature (standard specifications seem to call for support of upto 5 SATA devices only through a port multiplied link)
- For the pricing of the device (more than $250), an add-on card with the appropriate Silicon Image controller must be bundled
- The unit forsakes support for 2.5" HDDs / SSDs, and the latter don't work even with 3.5" adapters. The only way to solve this issue would be for Mediasonic to bundle a tray capable ot supporting both 2.5" and 3.5" HDDs and slotting in perfectly with the fixed SATA connectors inside the unit.
- The bridge chips conform to the SATA 3 Gbps specification only, and USB 3.0 port is unable to deliver full performance. With eight drives being accessed simultaneously, it is quite easy to saturate a 3 Gbps link. Bridge chips capable of 6 Gbps support would definitely become necessary when DAS units with SSD support come to the market.
Motherboard vendors should also make sure that their eSATA ports conform to the port multiplier specifications. However, the rise in popularity of USB 3.0 probably means that vendors don't want to spend too much effort on this. Thanks to its dual interface, the Mediasonic Probox enclosure is compliant with a wide range of systems. It should be able to satisfy the needs of most consumers looking for a 8-bay JBOD enclosure.
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Point2Note - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
@ypsylon they offer the raid version of the 8 bay as well, although the raid version doesn't work if you only use it for jbod, and the plastic handles are uselessi use 2 probox 8 bay at home, since my case has only has 10 drive capacity, both use usb 3 since i cant find motherboard or esata card that works with this 8bay.
the bad thing using usb is i cant remove a drive without interrupting the other drive that in the same bay (it will get disconnected and reconnected, so if im copying something from a drive inside the bay i cant unplug another drive in the same bay)
also the speed is also halved when accessing multiple drive at the same time, but since the bay cost below 200$ each,it's fine for me
i agree with ganesh that motherboard vendor should support port multiplier, since they usually use a chipset that already has port multiplier support but its depend on the mobo vendor to enable them or not, i also agree that mediasonic should bundle them with esata card since not many users know that they need additional card if they are using the bay with esata. i even cant get my 2 bay thermaltake to work with my motherboard esata (z68x ud7)
rahvin - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
I have a request, in future motherboard reviews can you test for port multiplier support? When I bought my current board I had to find the JMicron chip number (using high res images of the motherboard) for the eSATA ports and look at the specs for the chip to find out if the board supported port multipliers because the manual said absolutely nothing about it, and the manufacturer didn't appear to care.This is a handy feature and if you guys could list whether the boards support it when you do reviews it would save a lot of time for people that need the capability. The manufacturers don't appear to care about it and it appears it's a feature they aren't even aware exists in some cases (the chip they pick for esata has the capability but it wasn't a feature that had any role in the selection). When it was looking it appeared only about 20% of the eSATA chips had port multiplier capability and it looks like a crap shoot on whether you will get it on board or not. So please add this to a list of feature checks, it a really nice feature.
Antiflash - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
Quick question for all you storage gurus:Can this DAS (or any JBOD DAS) be use as a Storage Pool to create Storage Spaces in Windows 8?
samsp99 - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
How well this performs with storage spaces would be really interesting. I think you could then use JBOD from the device, and the OS should be able to provide redundancy & mapping all the storage into a large volume so that file management (especially for media) becomes easier.Could you follow up with a part 2 when you have an appropriate esata card.
philipma1957 - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
One question how loud does this run. Since it is right next to the pc I would hear it if it runs loud most 80mm fans are really loud. I had an eight bay rosewill like this with my mac pro. I used a card with 2 esata jacks that were pm. I ran a 4x 2tb raid0 and a second 4x tb raid0. one backed up the other it was fast 250 mb read and write. and since it had 120mm fans it was quiet. I prefer t-bolt pegasus r6 but they cost a lot more.Deptacon - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Really? How is this an andandtech review? Its awful. Its obvious the reviewer has no grasp of this niche of the market. some of us with experiance with DAS units and enclousures...specifically running multiple drives through esata or USB to a main PC.....could have learned a lot from this. Instead, I ended reading the review with more questions.....I will buy and re-review it if Anadtech would like....christ....get someone who actually uses the products next time to review them. Like having an avid die hard android user review the new iPhone....
Deptacon - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
World wide standard for measuring something is Length, width, height..... not Width length, height like you did. Yet another example of how much of a fail this review was.I am buying this product this week. When I get it in....I will write a lenghty review and post it in the forums. Being someone who actually has experiance with esata, port multiplying, and DAS enclosure setups....others like me might find my review I post actually useful.
ganeshts - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
I am always striving to improve. It has been quite some time since we carried out a DAS review (I do NAS reviews usually). Please do review the product in the forums and provide the link here (or you can e-mail me too). I will take a look at it and see what other aspects should have been covered.In any case, it has been specifically mentioned that once we get hold of a port-multiplier enabled card, we will take another look at the product.