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PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:41 pm 
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I picked up a Mediasonic 'ProBox' HF2-SU2S2 4 Bay Esata & USB Enclosure from a local computer shop today. After tax it cost $156.81 CAD.

I updated to the Marvell 1.2.0.68 Driver (available here) before beginning but I'm not certain if this is required or even recommended.

In short: It works.

It has some nifty features: The PowerSync Modes (turns off/standby with attached computer). The fan as 4 Settings (Auto/High/Med/Low). It has both USB & ESata Connectivity.

I fiddled a bit with (esata) hotplug & hotswap. Hotswap is not supported and I found that hotplug was unreliable. I'll be powering off the server to make drive changes in the esata unit.

I only tested it with one drive but it worked in both slots 1 & 2. I presume 3 & 4 work also. USB connectivity was not tested (yet).

Anyway Pics (that I would have found useful before purchasing) follow:


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:22 pm 
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Ymboc,
Thanks for posting the pics and telling us about the enclosure. Looks like a pretty good enclosure and the price is terriffic! Thanks for letting us know it works with the MSS.
George

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:35 pm 
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ymboc wrote:
I updated to the Marvell 1.2.0.68 Driver (available here) before beginning but I'm not certain if this is required or even recommended.


With the Sans Digital, the server would hang during a reboot until I updated the driver. I'm thinking that you probably would have had the same issue with this one if you had not updated the driver.

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HP MSS DataVault X510
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:43 am 
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Just curious if you've had a chance to add any additional drives to the unit beyond the first drive. I'm curious if it will show multiple drives when connected to MSS using eSata...

Thanks!


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PostPosted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 4:06 pm 
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Sadly I haven't yet... but I have tried all the slots independently... I had figured that would be enough to show they'll all work when more than one drive is present (do you know something I don't?).

I had bought the unit because of it's cheap price and if sata didn't work out I could still fall back on USB.

Anyway, I have a few extra drives kicking around I could plug in to test later this weekend.... I'll post if I end up getting around to testing.


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PostPosted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 4:29 pm 
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ymboc wrote:
Anyway, I have a few extra drives kicking around I could plug in to test later this weekend....

Thanks - I went ahead and ordered the enclosure anyways. I saw a couple other posts where people seemed to get it working with multiple drives. I think the same thing you did - if eSata doesn't work I'll just use the USB port. I've got a bunch of drives, so as soon as it arrives I'm going to load it up and see how well it works. I'll post my results here for other's who might be considering it...

Thanks!


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PostPosted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 4:55 pm 
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I have the exact same unit, bought it from Canada Computers.

I've had it for around 6 months now, not a problem.

and since I just formatted my WHS and didn't install any additional drivers, I'de say that you don't need the updated driver for this.

I'm using the e-sata interface.

I put the fan setting to max, it gets a bit warm in there, I've had the maximum of 3 in there, but putting the forth one this week.

the mechanism to put the HDDs, especially the front door is retarded to say the least, at least comparing to how easy MSS is, but it works and it works well.

over all I'm a happy camper with it.

good purchase and review ;)

also, my friend owns one too, he is also happy with it as well


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File comment: just a quick picture, sorry my WHS life is a mess, thanks to my recent CPU upgrade, thanks again ymboc, your guide was great!
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:36 pm 
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Well I picked up two WD 1gb drives today and tried to install them into the 'probox'.... and I'm having a hard time of it using esata :(

diggityDawg: You asked if I had tried more than one drive at a time... may I ask why/how you knew it could be a problem? (It seems you have some insights I'm lacking)

MetaLRasaM: Can you confirm which version of the probox you have (raid or the jbod version) and what you marvell driver version is?

I haven't given up but it's not clear to me what the trouble is...


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:33 pm 
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ymboc wrote:
diggityDawg: You asked if I had tried more than one drive at a time... may I ask why/how you knew it could be a problem? (It seems you have some insights I'm lacking)

In my research I found that the EX48x version of the MSS doesn't support port multipliers any more (the old version did), which you would need to recognize more than one drive. It basically takes the 4 sata ports and channels them through the one external port, then the MSS needs to recognize that there are four drives there, not just one. With the newer boxes the support isn't there for this. At least that's how I understand it...

I got my ProBox late last week. I put four drives in and it would not recognize the drives using the esata port. I switched to the USB and everything works great - all four drives show up, I've added them to the pool and I can see them in Drive Manager. I've heard that the speed is fine for most operations, but I would obviously prefer to use the esata port. I was thinking of upgrading the Marvell driver and trying again, but haven't had a chance yet (we access lots of our media from the WHS, so I can't reboot whenever I want). As soon as I do I'll post my results, but I'm not holding my breath...

Good Luck!

dd


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:47 pm 
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diggityDawg: I have the EX47x... what do you have? I didn't expect to encounter port multiplier issues...

Edit/Followup: I got it working (so far - I'll post any further glitches as they develop)

The only thing I think I did different was now the hard drives in the esata enclosure are all formatted (the two 1gb drives were unformatted) and I'm using the 1.2.0.60 driver (was using 1.2.0.68 but also tried 1.2.0.46).


Last edited by ymboc on Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:49 pm 
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ymboc wrote:
diggityDawg: I have the EX47x... what do you have? I didn't expect to encounter port multiplier issues...

Sorry, thought you had the same box as me. I got a EX485. So definitely not the same issue...


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:31 pm 
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Followup #2: It stopped working.

I briefly had two drives recognized half-way through a driver update... half-way as in the reboot immediately after a driver change where one half of the driver was installed before the reboot and the other half (marvell virtual device or something) after.

Thanks to VGA cable I know that with two drives in the enclosure (slot#1 & 3), WHS halts/reboots half-way through booting...

Going to experiment more to see if I can accomplish anything.

I'm still eagerly waiting to hear back from MetaLRasaM to confirm which specific model probox he has and which driver version works for him... He stated he didn't change anything which should mean 1.2.0.46 but that one didn't work out for me.

Followup: After another failed crack at it with the 1.2.0.46 driver I got it working with 1.2.0.69 (downloaded here).


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:58 pm 
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ymboc wrote:
Followup #2: It stopped working.

I briefly had two drives recognized half-way through a driver update... half-way as in the reboot immediately after a driver change where one half of the driver was installed before the reboot and the other half (marvell virtual device or something) after.

Thanks to VGA cable I know that with two drives in the enclosure (slot#1 & 3), WHS halts/reboots half-way through booting...

Going to experiment more to see if I can accomplish anything.

I'm still eagerly waiting to hear back from MetaLRasaM to confirm which specific model probox he has and which driver version works for him... He stated he didn't change anything which should mean 1.2.0.46 but that one didn't work out for me.

Followup: After another failed crack at it with the 1.2.0.46 driver I got it working with 1.2.0.69 (downloaded here).

Sorry about the delay. I've recently formated my WHS like 48798479847 times, stupid failing HDD killed me, but it worked well with the stock driver, and I also tried the updated one you posted, and also worked without a problem.

I'm surprised you are having issues with it, my friend and I both have one, and not a single problem, it isn't hot swapple, but it works well. WHS sees the drives, you add them to the pool and everyone is happy.

I will post more details once I officially finish moving all my data back to WHS, I'm half way there, another 2.5TB and I should be done.


I have the non-raid one...


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:59 pm 
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let me know what else you need to know, I'll be more than happy to help out.


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 7:03 pm 
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MetaLRasaM wrote:
I'm surprised you are having issues with it...


I was similarily suprised but at least it's all resolved now.

Perhaps I had screwed around with the drivers a bit too much testing for hotswap/plug support.

Cheers


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