[ale] USB disk enclosures?

[Alex Carver]

I bought a Vantec enclosure a while ago but I think you're going to have
noisy enclosures no matter what unless you shell out for high end
multi-bay enclosures (which have bigger fans) or buy ball bearing fans
and replace them yourself.  The low end enclosures use sleeve bearings
which wear out quickly given their size and the speed of small fans.

A quick check of DigiKey shows there are over 100 5-volt fans with ball
bearings in stock and they range in size from 25 mm to 120 mm.  Ball
bearing fans tend to be thicker, though, so that may be an issue for
some enclosures.

On 2017-12-18 01:59, Leam Hall via Ale wrote:
> I've bought a couple Rosewill enclosures and usually things have gone
> okay. Then one came with a noisy fan. I contacted Rosewill and offered
> to make it easy, I'd replace the fan myself. Eventually they sent me a
> replacement fan that didn't work at all. Contacted them again and they
> said send them the enclosure, they'd look at it for 2-5 days, and if it
> was their fault send me another.
> 
> Of course that means backups to that drive would be unavailable for 2-3
> weeks. If their Customer Support had been supportive I'd stick with
> them. It felt like they wanted me to be glad they answered the e-mails
> within a couple days.
> 
> So I find myself looking for a new enclosure brand. Any suggestions? I
> need something that can handle the 4-8 TB range WD Red 3.5 inch disks.
> 
> Leam
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