Vantec Nexstar MX 2 Bay SATA Hard Drive Enclosure Black USB2.0 JBOD

Comment:
Configuring JBOD or single drives is confusing. The included manual and markings on PC Board are in conflict with one another.The PC Board inside has a sticker next to the selector switch that indicates what the position of the switch should be for JBOD. This sticker is INCORRECT! On the opposite side of the switch on the PC Board, there is a word "BIG" on the PC Board but this to is incorrect.The switch should be moved as indicated by the instructions in the manual i.e DOWNWARD for single disks and UPWARD for JBOD. I tested this with 2 X WD 1 Terabyte drives. This discrepancy is not a problem if you have new, empty drives as you can disconnect and change the switch. But if you have data on one or both drives, it can end in disaster if you don't have backups. Which was probably the reason you bought this in the first place - in order to do those backups that you didn't have space for yet?Formatting took 3 - 4 hours per drive. At the same time I was formatting a Seagate 1 Terabyte HDD in an ANTEC MX-1 enclosure via eSATA (p3gb transfer speed)anf this took 2.5 hours on the same machine.

Comment:
Drives works well (2 500gb Seagates), its a nice design, price is acceptable - but it is noisy.Enclosure has JBOD (multiple drive) option, and 1 big disk option as well. You cannot format the drives in the enclosure which is a poor design in my opinion. The fan is very loud, and cannot be switched off. I will have to replace the fan or add a manual switch. Not recommended for this reason.

Comment:
Easily mounted an 80 gig SATA drive in the enclosure, plugged it into my PC and formatted it FAT32. Assigned it a drive letter and it worked great. Then I added a 500 gig SATA drive, plugged the whole thing into my iMac and formatted both drives as HFS+. Both drives showed up individually on my desktop and it all worked great on the Mac as well. No slower than the other USB 2.0 drives I have tried, especially considering that I have relatively slow drives in it. Haven't tried the JBOD option (prefer to have seperate drives). It's no louder than the fan on my PC, so I don't really notice the sound of the cooling fan. Of course, it's not as quiet as my iMac, but I prefer a bit of fan noise on the drive over having it overheat.

Comment:
I’ve been waiting Vantec to release this product for 2 months already. When I saw the ad in magazine, I knew it will be a perfect device for both my old drives. Surprisingly when they launched the product last month, the price is a lot lower than what I expected. This sure is a great deal for dual bay enclosure in the market. I like the design and it’s pretty easy to install. Oh~ btw, I gotta mention they included a pretty decent software made by Arcsoft for back up. It’s quite user friendly, even a dummie like me can set up for schedule back up on my photo & files. I would say this is the best deal I can find for dual bay enclosure else where. Highly recommend it!

Comment:
Great enclosure the install was easy just slide the drives into the cradle and screw the hard drives in. Currently i got 2 500 gigs in it. One i had in another enclosure and one that i got on sale this week. I will probably look at putting in a 1tb drive down the road. Recording tv is what this device will be doing mostly but it might end up storing video files and etc.

Comment:
I bought this because I was running low on hard drive space and wanted something more expandable than just one drive. I put two WD 750 GB drives in it, and formatting took several hours per drive. My computer had no problem recognizing the drives (I did them separate instead of JBOD).Transferring data to the drives takes a while, I recommend setting it to go overnight if you are moving a lot of data.Other than the front aluminum plate not staying where it should (it keeps popping off at the top so that it is pulled away and the LEDs don't match up to the holes) I highly recommend this enclosure, especially if you want a cheap easy way to add as much space as you want, currently up to 2 TB.

Comment:
So I've been looking for a long time for a enclosure, but for some reason none of the ones out there worked for me. Design is a big thing as I wanted something that is going to sit on the desk to actually look good as well!I finally saw this in one of the newspapers at NCIX about a month ago, and during the sale last week I saw they finally got them in. Took a day to bring it in from the warehouse.I love everything about this enclosure. It takes two HD's obviously which is a big plus. I bought one of the new Seagate 500GB 7200.11 drives and it works perfect. Yes I purchased ONE. I decided not to setup using JBOD. I figured down the road I can easily put in another drive.I like the fact there are no wires inside. The harddrive just slides in and plugs into the slots. I do wish however there was plastic mounts where you screw the HD onto.I might recommend formating your drive before putting it inside. It took several hours to do it, and i'm not sure if thats normal or not.My computer is pretty quite, so I did notice the sound from the fan. Its actually louder than my computer. I might look to see if I can replace it. However on that note, I am GLAD this enclosure has a fan. Many of them out there don't, and I like the fact that there is active cooling (pulls in air from the front, and pushes out the back.I haven't tried out the software that comes with it yet, so I can't comment on it. Another small nit pick is the powersupply. I wish it was just one cable, but there is a small powerbrick that you plug in. I wouldn't mind a slightly bigger enclosure, and a single cable inside.Last but not least the I average around 15-20/MBs transfer rate. I've got the USB plugged straight into my mobo. I was hoping for faster speeds, but for now, this is perfectly fine. Having a firewire slot to run inspeed with the USB would of been nice.In the end, totally happy with this enclosure. As I am a wedding photographer, I shoot gig's and gig's of photos. I can see myself purchasing another one of these down the road.

Comment:
any two 2.5" HD enclosure is bound to be a little bulky, but otherwise I can't complain whatsoever. there are no cables, slimply slide the HD along the rack where it plugs into the circuit board, theres a small fan for cooling, the thick aluminum shell provides adequate heat dissipation with the fan. great unit, wish I had bought it sooner.

Comment:
If you're looking for an inexpensive external enclosure but need more than 1 bay, this is probably your best bet. Vantec released this model just recently, and I bought it after reading a couple reviews and it's holding up well in my opinion. I stuck in 2 WD 500GB drives and set it up nicely and cleanly. The construction is well-made, a mix of plastic and aluminium housing keeps the drives locked in place. Another great plus is the adequate ventilation - there's a front intake grill and a fan in the back for exhaust.A couple gripes I do have is the lack of other connectivity options - it would nice to see either firewire or e-sata connectivity. Also, you can't do much with RAID - you've only got two options of going single drive and JBOD.For the price though, this is a worthy enclosure and I do recommend it if you're looking for more storage. This review was modfied by poster @ 11-28-07 07:21 PM