Hello, I’m looking to buy 2 enclosures for 2 WD Blues (8TB). Any good recommendations for some enclosures? Must have built in fan. What enclosures do you use? Also, would 2 be necessary? If not are there any precautions to take while storing the extra HDD without an enclosure? I was thinking it’s probably best to keep them both in separate enclosures instead of buying one and using it for both when needed, this is for long term storage and will mostly be stored away.

  • @jfanBEnglish
    1•7 months ago

    I looked for this exact thing a few years ago and could not find one I trusted (too small a fan, too small an enclosure, untrusted brands, etc, etc ) so I came up with another solution. I am betting people here will not like it for one reason or another, but so far it has worked perfectly for what I want, which is keeping my hdd much cooler than not using this.

    I have many 3 duplicate drives, one which I keep offsight, another I keep Moreoffsighter… and one which I use to add more to. When I get nervous about too much new stuff I grab one of the back up drives and use this clone device/docking station to clone the current drive to the backup drive.

    So far it has worked perfect and fast, much faster than my old stupid method of using USB to USB data moving. I shucked drives out of their USB cases and now instead of taking 2-7 days (yes I have an issue with my USB3 connectors) it takes no time at all (depending on the drive size)

    I wanted those drives to “Be Cool” when cloning and also to “Be Cool” when I am backing daily stuff. I usually keep this docking station unplugged, but when I need it I have it plugged into a switched power supply, which is plugged into a quality UPC battery back up.

    So I have the docking station plugged into switched power AND I have 6 inch quality desktop fan plugged in to the same switch. When I use this set up I plug in the docking station USB to my computer and turn on the power switch which turn on both the docking station and fan. It works quite well for me… although I doubt it will impress anyone here, but no one else answered yet, so I thought I would toss out this idea, which even if you do not use this, it might spark a better idea for you.

    Here are the parts Opolar6InchFan DockingStation/Cloner/A6PF_130943717003271936k9NUdIaP1C.jpg)

  • @jfanBEnglish
    1•7 months ago

    I will add that I am not sure that “Blues” are a good idea. Heck, I am not even sure why WD sells them because they are known thought to be inferior drives which are more likely to fail, although that opinion is based only on what I have heard and read… but there is usually a reason one product line is much cheaper then another.

    I understand many companies like to provide 2-6 or more quality levels across their product lines allowing them to sell to every type of customer at every price level, even if the products appear similar, often they are not. e.g. Fender guitars will sell us a Strat which cost $199, $399, $799, $1299, $2299, $5999, $10999 and up… and all of them look the same… but…

    When it comes to storage drives (where the time value of time spent collecting and storing usually far outweighs paying a bit more for a better quality drive (depending how much one values one’s time)(and data…which one will learn if/when the data is lost due to a crappy drive failing)… I might suggest NOT using Blues… but only time will tell with yours.

  • @ratudioBEnglish
    1•7 months ago

    you can look at das enclosures which usually have fans that support 2 to 10 hdd and hot swappable i believe