DataTale PAIR 2-Bay FireWire 800, USB, eSATA 2.5-inch RAID Enclosure

The Jury is still out at the moment. While I completely appreciate the Technical versatility of this enclosure: USB, e-SATA, and 800FW, I'm still not sure if it's functioning as expected. This enclosure is advertised on Amazon to be compatible with a 1TB WD drive. There is a link to the upgraded version of the 1TB drive. I bought this enclosure and the two upgraded drives. Technical Function: I have a MacBP13" and wanted to use on the 800FW port. Currently I set it up as one NTF drive to share with my Window systems and one Journaled for my Mac Drive. I dumped about 100GB of music from my laptop to each drive. It was not as fast as I expected for using 800FW. I'm in the process of experimenting with reformatting the drives in a couple raid configurations to see how the unit and 2 drives perform. Finish Quality: Overall it is a slim unit, very sleek. It's not advertised this way, but the white top, gives the appearance, or at least it was my expectation, it would match style-wise with my Mac; it's close, but the metal enclosure feels a bit light in construction, and the finish isn't quite Apple/Mac. Add an Apple/Mac enthusiast sticker, and unless you put your hands on it, you might not be able to tell it's not perfect match. Portability/Durability: I can't say at the moment how robust/durable the unit is, but I'm not typically abusive to my gear. I'm pretty mobile and it is slim and sleek and has a slip case; it's definitely less bulky than two separate USB drives. It does come with all the wires you need to power the unit on the go. It has a 110/220V adapter, and a dual USB power dongle and a separate USB connection cord. I've run it on FW800 without the USB power, however, to run the two drives via USB connection, I'm pretty sure you need to connect the USB power dongle. Overall: All in all, it wasn't cheep, but I like to experiment. It appears the Hard Drives just went up in price since I purchased, so supply and demand will probably take the fun out of experimenting for the budget minded. However, if you want to put a very PORTABLE 2-TBs in your backpack, this is a pretty sweet package.Regards,

This product, which I have tested two of them, does not support Firewre 800 on Macs. In particular MacBook Pro Core i7, and MacMini Intel Dual Core 2. OSX 10.6.8, OSX 10.7, OS10.8So if you want the speed of FW-800, and you have a Mac, this is a very expensive product at over $100. A very good alternative and all around better product for less money is:Other World Computing Mercury Elite Pro. It has all the same features plus firewire 400. It is also a bit larger with a thick aluminum case so the drives run 10 degrees C cooler, which translates in double the drive lifetime. It needs no vendor specific drivers, just those that Apple supports natively. It runs just fine on MacBook Pro Core i7, and MacMini Intel Dual Core 2. OSX 10.6.8, OSX 10.7, OS10.8I highly do not recommend DataTale PAIR 2-Bay FireWire 800, USB, eSATA 2.5-inch RAID Enclosure, because lack of support for FW-800 and lower drive reliability because it runs hotter. Reliability is why you buy a RAID device to begin with.I have both external RAID solutions (i've listed above) and have no vested interest in either company. I have a vested interest in my data, interface speed (FW-800) and reliability of my storage solution.DataTale could fix this if they choose to. If that happens I would be more than happy to give the new solution a fair and unbiased review.

A little pricy thus 4 stars, it is speedy--around 80MBps when copying large files, a little bit faster than my other external firewire case, AComData which max speed is 72MBps, but it cost less. Looks like it is reliable so far for two days of use, it gets pretty warm though but unlike AComdata, the two drives I use are side by side instead of stacked together, the heat dissipates sooner and quicker. The size of the case can be smaller as I can see there are wasted space. If it can be a little bit smaller, this case will be even more attractive and much more portable, it looks like an old style external DVD drive.

I've had nothing but trouble with this enclosure. The first few times I used it, the connection to the drives would randomly fall off, and they'd go dark. The power connection is a bit flimsy, so I was concerned about that. Eventually one of the drives stopped responding altogether, but neither drive would show up - they were configured JBOD, not in RAID. I pulled the drives out, tested them individually in a different enclosure. One drive was bad, the other was fine, not sure why it didn't show up. After some problems with the main power connector, I figured I'd use it exclusively over Firewire, where you don't need the external power supply hoping that would help. Same problems started happening again. Drives would just not show up. I'd bring my computer home from work, plug it in, and nothing. Pulled the drives, both are fine.I've seem some other reviewers who thing this is an expensive device. I don't personally feel that. The construction is above average, though perhaps a bit light for some, and when it worked, it was fast and responsive. It not working however, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was responsible for tanking the one drive (which was an SSD), leaves me feeling pretty peeved.The final nail for me is that this is the second datatale enclosure I own, and the other one, a 3.5" enclosure is also no longer working. Why does external drive storage have to be so difficult, even with SSDs!

The software component has a ugly UI, but it is working. Sadly the software component doesn't have a way to start in the background and notify you if there's a hardware issue, so you need to be able to see the lights on the device or to periodically check.The hardware component is working with the fire wire cable, I haven't tried using the other ones.Very difficult to find type of product. I paid 110 dollars for it and feel like I've gotten my money's worth, but some might consider that pricy.

Cumbersome, had trouble getting raid set up. Inconvenient on/off button.