Don’t be afraid of upgrading your storage enclosure to a more expensive model. It’s not worth it to buy the most expensive product on the market, just because you can get one for less than half the cost. Consider which features are important to you, and then decide which product has those features, with one exception.
Adding a new hard drive to your computer is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to increase its storage capacity. But not all drives work the same way — and if you’re planning on using it for sensitive or mission-critical data, you need one that’s fast and reliable.
Hard drives are available in a wide variety of capacities, speeds, and technologies. There are several different types of hard drives available on the market today. Each type is built for a different purpose, with different levels of speed and reliability.
The key is to choose products that have more in common than they do differently. For example, if all you want is a box that can handle 5 drives, you probably don’t need a RAID 5 enclosure that can cope with twice as many drives. If five drives will do the job, there’s no need for six or eight or even 10 drives; any more than that could potentially benefit from RAID 5 functionality, but it would be overkill for someone who just needs a five-drive box.
1. TERRAMASTER
TerraMaster’s F2-210 is a powerful 2-bay NAS for home and SOHO users, running the latest TOS 4.2 operating system. The F2-210 features dual Gigabit LAN ports with Link Aggregation and failover support, allowing you to create an ultrahigh-speed backend storage solution with maximized utilization of up to 1GB/s throughput.
TerraMaster is a professional brand that focuses on storage products, including network-attached storage and direct-attached storage, which are sold in more than 40 countries. Based on the excellent hardware design and mature software, TerraMaster provides complete and easy-to-use NAS solutions for home, SOHO, and SMB users.
The F2-210 supports both 3.5″ and 2.5″ SATA drives, comes with 1GB of RAM (NOT upgradeable), and blazingly fast read/write speeds of more than 114 MB/s (RAID 0, SATA III 4TB NAS hard drives x 2).
Powered by a 64-bit ARM v8 quad-core 1.4GHz CPU, the F2-210 provides a high-performance yet energy-efficient NAS solution that can easily handle workloads such as real-time 4K transcoding** and large file transfers.
The F2-210 supports Emby and Plex media servers which keep your videos, music, and photos personal media beautifully organized, always ready for on-demand streaming to your PC, mobile device, smart TV, or games console.
2. ORICO
ORICO 5 Bay Hard Drive Docking Station is one of the best external hard drive dockings that you can get in 2022. It has a lot of useful features and comes at a very affordable price.
ORICO 5 Bay Hard Drive Docking Station is very easy to use, you just need to plug this docking station into your computer and insert the hard drives that you want to use. You can work with all types of 2.5-inch SSDs and 3.5-inch HDDs that have a SATA interface.
This docking station doesn’t require an AC adapter and it uses the power from your computer to provide power to your hard drives.
The performance of this docking station is superb as well, you can get up to 5Gbps transfer speeds and it supports hot-swapping as well so that you can remove one disk while other disks are still connected to the computer and working on them.
3. ORICO 4 Bay USB 3.0
The ORICO 4 Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure USB 3.0 has a unique, simple style, with a brushed aluminum alloy shell, brushed process surface makes the enclosure feel more delicate. The built-in 150W power supply provides faster and more stable performance compared to other external hard drives on the market.
With an independent power adapter, it can provide sufficient power for four hard drives to work at the same time. The chipset is designed with dual-core, stable and fast performance, with USB3.0 high-speed interface, which can support UASP transmission protocol and transfer speed up to 5Gbps.
This product only supports SATA protocol HDDs (2.5/3.5 inch), does not support IDE protocol HDDs, mSATA solid-state drives or PCI-E solid-state drives; SSDs are not supported because they do not have spinning disks inside them and do not need cradles to work; no support for Apple’s Time Machine backup function; Does NOT support hot-plugging when connected to a Windows system; this product is an HDD enclosure, but it does not include an HDD; please purchase an HDD separately if you need it.
4. ORICO 5Bay External Raid Hard Drive
The ORICO 6268US3-C 5 Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure offers an easy solution to expand the storage of your computer. With five 3.5″ SATA drive trays, you can add up to 80TB of capacity to your computer system by inserting hard drives into the removable trays. The enclosure is a perfect solution for both home and business users who need a large storage capacity for backups of personal data or client files, or for use as a RAID array to increase the performance of your system.
The ORICO 5 Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure is the perfect solution for your storage needs. With enough space to hold 5 HDDs, you can create a RAID array, or simply install your HDDs to use as extra storage.
What makes this device so versatile is that it supports 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives and solid state drives, giving you the freedom to choose whichever drive suits your needs.
The device connects to your computer via USB 3.0, which allows transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps, making this device ultra-fast!
With a built-in fan, the enclosure will dissipate heat efficiently and keep your hard drives cool while in use.
ORICO’s 5 Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure is plug and play, making it extremely easy to use whether at home or in the office!
5. Syba
Keep data protected when using 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA II or III hard drives with the Syba 5 Bay Tool-Less Tray Hot-Swappable 2.5″ 3.5″ SATA III RAID HDD External USB 3.0 Enclosure Windows macOS SY-ENC50118. With an expansive capacity of 5TB, this desktop SATA III hard drive enclosure supports high-speed SATA III hard drives and boasts a USB3.0 plug and play hub allowing you to quickly plug and transfer all your SATA III hard drives between your computers at blazing speeds of up to 5Gbps. The aluminum casing provides protection.
This USB 3.0 SATA hard drive enclosure is a perfect tool-free design, 8 bay hot-swappable enclosure for all brands of 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard disk drives up to 18TB per drive. The built-in smart fan ensures efficient heat ventilation and protects the drives from overheating and prolongs the lifespan of the hard disk drives.
USB3.0 SuperSpeed connector is capable of speeds up to 5Gbps, 10 times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard while remaining backward compatible with USB 1.1/2.0 devices and ports.
Support UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) which will perform faster than traditional USB3.0 when used with a UASP supported host controller which can be found in most modern computers using current chipset architecture including Intel 6 Series or later chipsets with Windows 8 or later operating systems as well as some Linux kernels 4. x or later such as Ubuntu 14.04 or later distributions with a native UASP driver included in the OS distribution.
6. ORICO 4 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure 3.5inch Type-C
The ORICO WS400C3 is a hard drive enclosure that supports 4 x 3.5 inch SATA I / II / III HDD or SSD with the latest Type-C USB3.1 Gen2 interface for fast data transfer and simplified device connection. Its aluminum alloy shell work together with a fan to provide superior heat dissipation. The simple screw installation design is easy to install, and data can be stored in a safe way that protects enterprise businesses from potential dangers of data loss.
7. Yottamaster
Yottamaster 5 Bay Aluminum Alloy Hard Drive Enclosure for 2.5/3.5 Inch SATA HDD is an ideal solution for you to store your data or backup at home or office. It enables you to build a high-performance and high-capacity storage system by using a variety of hard drives, and it is compatible with Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 Mac OS X 10.8(Mountain Lion) above system.
The Yottamaster 2-Bay hard drive enclosure with USB 3.0 interface provides a reliable external storage system for individuals and the perfect RAID storage solution for video editors, graphic designers, photographers, business professionals and enthusiasts.
With four RAID modes (RAID 0, RAID 1, BIG, NORMAL), it provides flexible storage choices to meet your different requirements on data protection and performance.
Its compact size and lightweight make it easy to carry while traveling or as a backup solution at home.
8. OWC
The OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad is a four-bay, hot-swappable SAS/SATA 6G RAID storage enclosure with advanced features. Create RAID 5 or 10 volumes in minutes with failover capability using two external power supplies. The Mercury Elite Pro Quad has room for up to 12 hard drives for nearly limitless storage capacity in a 4U space enclosure.
9. Yottamaster 2 Bay RAID External Hard Drive
The Yottamaster 2 Bay RAID External Hard Drive Enclosure is a perfect solution for people to back up data from 2.5″ mobile hard drives and 3.5″ desktops hard drives. Whether you’re looking to store media such as photos and videos, or work files and documents, the Yottamaster 2 Bay RAID External Hard Drive Enclosure comes fully equipped to store and protect your precious memories and information, including support for 32TB of storage, and RAID 0 / 1/ JBOD/Clone/ PM RAID Mode.
10. Oyen Digital MiniPro RAID V3
The MiniPro RAID V3 USB-C External Dual Bay Drive Enclosure from Oyen Digital provides a simple solution to locating and protecting vital computer storage. This external drive enclosure is compatible with both 15mm and 9.5mm SATA hard drives and features durable scratch-proof metal construction for long-term storage protection. The 2TB model works with USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 port hardware and provides a RAID-0 high-performance setup for simultaneous storage access from one PC, perfectly suitable for users’ general data applications, including audio/video editing, large database compiling, etc.