Mediasonic Probox 4-Bay Smart External Enclosure!

If you had been following my frustrations, you will know that My attempts at trying to get Zorin Linux to run as a server OS, leaved so much to be desired. Think of it like trying to take a sip of coffee, but the link between the coffee cup and your lips do not meet. Truth is, if I spent a month on it, I could have maybe finally understood all the terminal based coding to alter the backend security of the OS to finally stop being a dushi doo, and let me finally have access. But I just don't have the patients, and I need a file server yesterday.

Now, the company that makes these have 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. But that costs like 144 dollars to get that convenience. 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.

They also have larger 8 bay enclosures, but I am pretty sure no home owner ever needs those, they are more intended for small to medium business's. And of course they have the single drive bay enclosures for the home owner who has no need for extra storage, but those are not really smart boxes so they are pretty much plug and play, and rely heavily on the OS or router, depending on where you got it connected to.

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, closed 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 seperate 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. There is some more things you need to know otherwise you might think the enclosure is defective. This enclosure has a SYNC button and an INTERFACE button. Usually the enclosure selects USB by default, but if it doesn't, 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. I've heard that it could automatically raze it to 2, if you have 4 drives running being fully utilized.

So here are a few pictures of the unit for your viewing pleasure.





So lets talk about file transfer speeds...

I recently did some research into Readyshare and learned that the software in the routers have a speed limiting bug in them that has not been addressed for years, so the speed you will get will be limited. 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. So 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 Zorin OS installation ISO to my notebook, this is the speed I am getting...



And when I am writing to the drive enclosure, I am sending the same file to a test folder on the drive...



Usually in most cases, read speeds will exceed writing speeds, at least it does with SSD other based flash drive media. But with this 7200 RPM mechanical drive that has 64MB cash, well, it seemes 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 drive. 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. I have read lots of reviews from people that didn't know how to set it up and were yelling at the company to provide them answers to universe.

5 out of 5

Is that normal to get about half the speed of the 7,200RPM drives even if you have the network throughout? Less than 15MB/s seem low to me...

Again, I believe this is most likely due to the software bug in the router that limits the file transfer speed using Readyshare. Ideally its better to connect the enclosure directly to your computer. However, for ease of convenience, especially if you have multiple computers, its better to have it on the network. Although if your running Windows, you can easily share the drive on the network if you have it plugged into your computer. But I don't have a Windows machine anymore so ya.

A 7200-RPM hard drive has a maximum file transfer rate of around 150 megabytes per second. However, you will never be able to achieve that speed in real world tests. By the time the transfer is initiated by your OS, and goes through the ethernet card, your going to be down by 40 to 50 megabytes per second. USB 3 however is slower then ethernet, then you add the link between the drive and enclosure, then you add the speed bug in Readyshare.

Keep in mind, if you were running a slower 100 10 base T ethernet connection, your speeds would be down to 5 megabytes per second, so ya, I will take what I can get lol.

star treker wrote:Again, I believe this is most likely due to the software bug in the router that limits the file transfer speed using Readyshare. Ideally its better to connect the enclosure directly to your computer. However, for ease of convenience, especially if you have multiple computers, its better to have it on the network. Although if your running Windows, you can easily share the drive on the network if you have it plugged into your computer. But I don't have a Windows machine anymore so ya.

A 7200-RPM hard drive has a maximum file transfer rate of around 150 megabytes per second. However, you will never be able to achieve that speed in real world tests. By the time the transfer is initiated by your OS, and goes through the ethernet card, your going to be down by 40 to 50 megabytes per second. USB 3 however is slower then ethernet, then you add the link between the drive and enclosure, then you add the speed bug in Readyshare.

Keep in mind, if you were running a slower 100 10 base T ethernet connection, your speeds would be down to 5 megabytes per second, so ya, I will take what I can get lol.

I see well if the manufacturer is claiming this "150MB/s" why isn't it false advertising if you can't actually get that speed out of such drive? Wouldn't it make more sense to state what you can actually reasonably achieve out of a drive?

Car manufacturers for example might says "25 MPG" but because my mom drives it well she is usually able to get 30-36 MPG out of it.

Plus isn't 100Mbps able to reach about 11MB/s of "real world" throughout?

Yes it can if your using a business grade network. Consumer networks always get less and this has always been this way. A consumer grade 100 base T ethernet network usually will see a transfer rate of 5 to 8 megabytes per second maximum, you might hit 10 megabytes a second quickly, but it won't sustain that speed for long. Its also depndant on your hardware, how fast is the switch your using, the router, are you using old Cat 5 ethernet cables? How long are those cables if your using them?

Even in consumer gigabit networks, most users never report getting more then 60 megabytes per second. And this is due to the limitation of the hardware your using such as your gigabit switch and or router. Usually consumer grade equipment will only have one processor running it, and with very little memory, the buffer can fill up fast. Business grade routers and switches generally will have at least two processors running them, with a higher memory buffer. This makes it so you don't have a bottleneck in the main hardware.

But again, if you gotta run your cables long, say 50 feet or more, your going to want to be looking at using Cat 6 ethernet cables. If your running the newest 10GPBS networks, then you gotta have Cat 7. I do completely understand what you are saying however, manufacturers always claim the maximum rating something can possible attain in perfect lab tests, but they never want to give you real world speed. It helps to better sell the product to the consumer.

star treker wrote:Yes it can if your using a business grade network. Consumer networks always get less and this has always been this way. A consumer grade 100 base T ethernet network usually will see a transfer rate of 5 to 8 megabytes per second maximum, you might hit 10 megabytes a second quickly, but it won't sustain that speed for long. Its also depndant on your hardware, how fast is the switch your using, the router, are you using old Cat 5 ethernet cables? How long are those cables if your using them?

Even in consumer gigabit networks, most users never report getting more then 60 megabytes per second. And this is due to the limitation of the hardware your using such as your gigabit switch and or router. Usually consumer grade equipment will only have one processor running it, and with very little memory, the buffer can fill up fast. Business grade routers and switches generally will have at least two processors running them, with a higher memory buffer. This makes it so you don't have a bottleneck in the main hardware.

But again, if you gotta run your cables long, say 50 feet or more, your going to want to be looking at using Cat 6 ethernet cables. If your running the newest 10GPBS networks, then you gotta have Cat 7. I do completely understand what you are saying however, manufacturers always claim the maximum rating something can possible attain in perfect lab tests, but they never want to give you real world speed. It helps to better sell the product to the consumer.

I see this all does make sense now, is that why you best bet is looking at reviews (if there are even any)? Or what do you do to ensure you don't completely get screwed over?

I both write and read reviews, as I believe that reviews are the best way to keep the consumer informed about products and services. As I truly believe that when knowledge is shared, everyone benefits. So yes, do lots of reading, find out which products are good, which ones are bad, and which ones people just don't have an understanding of, and then make your decision weather to buy.

I used to write reviews for Epinions, they were a semi-professional site and we got paid for our reviews there. Unfortunately, Ebay was the purse for the payments and they got greedy and didn't want to pay us for our quality reviews anymore, so Epinions is no longer.

Last I knew the site stayed online for all of our old reviews which you can read, but it wouldn't allow us to write anymore new ones, so I am sure the site is already dated now. At this time Amazon is a good place to read reviews on products. And if the products are computer or electronic related, Newegg also has a nice reviews section. Although less people buy on there simply cause Amazon is all the craze these days, so you will see more reviews on Amazon then you do on Newegg.

Thing is, business grade hardware costs a lot more. You could spend 300 dollars for a router, another 300 dollars for your switch, up to 100 dollars for faster ethernet cards, so for the consumer it really is cost effective to buy the 80 dollar router, and 80 dollar switch instead lol.

star treker wrote:I both write and read reviews, as I believe that reviews are the best way to keep the consumer informed about products and services. As I truly believe that when knowledge is shared, everyone benefits. So yes, do lots of reading, find out which products are good, which ones are bad, and which ones people just don't have an understanding of, and then make your decision weather to buy.

I used to write reviews for Epinions, they were a semi-professional site and we got paid for our reviews there. Unfortunately, Ebay was the purse for the payments and they got greedy and didn't want to pay us for our quality reviews anymore, so Epinions is no longer.

Last I knew the site stayed online for all of our old reviews which you can read, but it wouldn't allow us to write anymore new ones, so I am sure the site is already dated now. At this time Amazon is a good place to read reviews on products. And if the products are computer or electronic related, Newegg also has a nice reviews section. Although less people buy on there simply cause Amazon is all the craze these days, so you will see more reviews on Amazon then you do on Newegg.

Thing is, business grade hardware costs a lot more. You could spend 300 dollars for a router, another 300 dollars for your switch, up to 100 dollars for faster ethernet cards, so for the consumer it really is cost effective to buy the 80 dollar router, and 80 dollar switch instead lol.

I see, thank you for keeping me informed.

Yes I also get what you mean consumers typically don't have too much throughput from their ISP(s) (I seen internet plans anywhere from 5-25Mbps for budget plans) so they just buy the cheaper stuffs than businesses do. Which make sense if your not plan on getting a ton of throughput and thus not worth paying close to a grand for the business gears.

Ya, I know what you mean, I got Comcast in my home and I pay for performance 25MB, which when tested, I am actually getting 29MB download and 6MB upload. However, if you only have two people in your house streaming 1080P, its really all the speed you need. I used to have issues with that back in the day when the bottom teer was 12MB but not anymore. Also, Comcast recently upgraded their bandwidth cap to 1TB. On average we only use about 250GB each month.

My gigabit network is actually good enough to easily support speeds much higher then we are getting now. On average my download rate is about 3.5 megabytes per second max. So, if we upgraded to a higher teer that gave us say IDK 6 megabytes a second, again my gigabit network can handle it. But if you were still running on an old 100 10 base T network, you'd be limited to around 5 megabytes per second no matter your net teer you pay.

Your welcome dude, I've enjoyed our conversation, you seem cool