MAIWO Dual Bay RAID Enclosure for 2.5“/3.5" SATA Drive with Cooling Fan, USB-C 3.1 SATAEnclosure for 48TB Capacity Expansion, 4 RAIDsMode(1/0/JBOD/NORMAL)

It works. It has cooling, sufficient for ordinary HDDs, I recommend those with lower RPM. "Works" is an important feature, because many similar devices do not work. While the electronics is somewhat old already, a RAID1 with quite inexpensive HDDs will save you from warring about infrequent, but very unpleasant storage crashes.

Bought this to back up my Synology using Hyper Backup using it in JBOD mode. After running the backup job for a period of time, the Synology would report that the disk was ejected improperly and the backup failed. This happened on multiple occasions, so I took the disks out of JBOD mode and ran the drives independently, manually splitting the backup between the two drives. Got the same error. I read an article on Reddit about similar issues that were evidently caused by the different chipsets between the NAS and the drive. Using a USB hub was the solution, so I bought the same one mentioned in the article that resolved the problem, but I got the same error, and after that attempt, the NAS wouldn't even attempt to mount the drives, with or without the hub. I moved it to my Windows system and tried reformatting the disks to NTFS, but I received "fatal hardware error" messages until Disk Manager would no longer respond. I couldn't even access the disks through DISKPART. I swapped out the drives with another one, and it still wouldn't function properly. I ended up returning the unit, as I could no longer trust it for backups on any platform.

I've used two MAIWO RAID enclosures before but they were for 2.5" SATA disks. They worked well. Step 1: install drives Step 2: upon power up all 3 RAID LEDs are steady indicating the default normal mode. Step 3: Set the switches for the desired RAID mode Step 4: Press and hold the reset button for 5 seconds. The appropriate RAID mode will light up and be in that RAID mode. Step 5: Format the RAID drives. Step 6: Copy data. Step 7: Set appropriate fan speeds. I don't know why so many people didn't read the manual with complaints that none of the RAID settings worked. They had to press the reset button. It's in the manual! I took off a star because of the cooling solution. It looks like the fan is just cooling the circuit board but there are grooves to stop it from pulling air from behind the case. The seal at the rear of the case is not air tight so I taped it over. I can feel air go in the front ever so slightly and if I put a thin piece of paper or plastic it will stick to the front indicating there is suction from the front. That said it won't cool the space between the 2 drives because the back of the circuit board is sealed. Air will flow around the drives but not through the 2 drives. See picturers for what I mean. As for speeds I was able to copy at 175MBps from a 10TB WD Elements USB harddrive to two 10TB HGST 7200RPM drives in RAID0 on a MAIWO . Task manager pegged both drives at 30% utilization. I also copied from 5TB toshiba x300 drives using a USB dock and the Maiwo RAID0 volume was using 100% utilization with the USB cock drive only using 30%. Transfer speeds were only 75MBps. A laser thermometer showed 80deg F on the front and sides and 84deg F on the rear fan while copying files to it. Ambient was 72deg F. I like the look of it and that it's elevated to keep it cooler. I wish it didn't use the other 2 RAID LEDs as activity LEDs but I understand the cost saving to keep everything on the circuit board side of the case.

The chassis is made of metal, and has a nice feel. Strong and sturdy. The installation of the matching HDD's was pretty straight forward. The only drawbacks are not actual operational paperwork and the speed of the array after configuration as RAID1 is really slow. I placed 2 8tb how's in RAID 1 configuration and plugged the box into a USB 3.2 pirt. Average write speed from an NVME M.2 PCI4.0 SDD was only 20 mps. When using the 8tb drives directly connected to the 3.2 USB port ithout the RAID enclosure averaged a speed of 220mps. So for backups, it's going to be slow (time wise) if you have a lot of files.

These work well. I replaced my older G-Technology RAIDS. I have two that I run as RAID 0 and no issues. They seem to run fairly cool.

It's not as fast as described via USB-C. LED lights stopped working after 6 months. Manufacturer doesn't replace the unit, only give you a discount for a new one.

Solid metal parts and built to hold drives firmly. Feet/handles on top and bottom make for convenient placement on my desk. RAID operation does require a bit of setup, but then works just fine.

I could not get RAID 1 to work. When set to RAID 1, only one disc was recognized by Disk Manager (the other showed as an unallocated volume). After I created 2 simple volumes and put it into the NORMAL mode, both discs mounted. After I made another I attempt to build a RAID 1, only 1 would mount and the other appeared as an unallocated volume. I tried setting the DIP switches with both power on and off, and pressing the reset button for at least 10 seconds after powering up. Connection was USBC. Disappointing. It is otherwise a sturdy, stylish enclosure.