Elephant RAID Review: Thinking about a RAID? Here are some things you should consider

Elephant RAID Review

Manufacturer: Elephant Storage
Model: Elephant RAID 1TB
Specifications: USB 2.0, Firewire 400 & 800
Capacities: 1TB, 1.5TB, 2.0TB
RAID: Supports RAID 0 or RAID 1 modes (selectable via dip switches)
Case: Aluminum
Cooling: Fan cooling

Choosing FireWire 800 over eSata… for now

Having taken on some video projects recently, I bought a large single 1TB drive to store all the footage on. As I began to edit, however, it became apparent that the USB 2.0 interface of my enclosure just wasn’t fast enough to handle the streams of video (no kidding). I needed a faster hard drive to handle all that data, so I started looking at my choices. eSATA seemed like a good choice, with speeds of up to 300 MB/sec. But my MacBook Pro doesn’t have eSATA ports, so I would have to find a eSATA Expresscard 34 that would work. Searching on the internet came back with a mixed bag of results, the most problematic being that the most commonly used chipset in the eSATA cards was incompatible with certain types of drive enclosures, and may or may not work with OSX 10.5 Leopard.

So I decided to avoid all the unknown headaches and go with a FireWire 800 drive, capable of transfer rates of 100 MB/sec. Fast enough for now, until the eSATA issues work themselves out.

I ended up with an Elephant Storage 1TB Elephant RAID, which was in stock at my local Mac retailer, Carbon Computing.

What you get:

In the box was a USB 2.0 cable, a FireWire 400 cable, a FireWire 800 cable, the power supply, and the drive itself. Being a RAID and housing two drives, the case is relatively large, about the size of a small loaf of bread. There is only one orientation possible, horizontal, since the drive feet are an integral part of the case. The drive does not feature removable bays, although taking it apart to swap out the drives is possible, it will void the warranty.

Ports and switches:

The drive has all the ports at the back, and the power button and status lights at the front. To turn on or shut down the drive, the power button must be pushed and held momentarily. RAID settings are changed by dip switches located on the back of the drive, and you can choose either RAID 0 (striping) or RAID 1 (mirrored). The drive has one USB 2.0 port, one FireWire 400 port, and two FireWire 800 ports, allowing it to be daisy chained via FireWire 800 only.

The case and noise:

The aluminum front is perforated, allowing air to flow through the case. It also allows the sound of the drives writing and clacking to be heard a bit louder than with a completely closed case. The case uses a fan to cool the drives, which adds to the noise. If you are looking for a silent drive to use in a critical listening situation, this isn’t the quietest choice. However, I would rather the drives not overheat and can trade off a little more noise for safer operation and longevity.

Elephant Storage gets extra marks for build quality. Made completely of aluminum, with no plastic in sight, the drive feels solid and extremely rigid. Even the included cables and power supply feel heavier and more durable than usual. Everything about it projects the feeling of quality. The drive comes with a two year warranty.

Where’s the manual?

The only negative was the lack of paper manual. In fact, there was no documentation of any kind in the box. There is a PDF manual that can be downloaded from Elephant Storage’s website, but it would have been nice to include it in the box. This is problematic only in that without any manual, there was no way to know what RAID mode your drive is set to, nor how to change it. The RAID 0 setting is described in the manual, and this is what I set it to. Even more frustrating is that there are no instructions in the downloaded manual on how to set it to RAID 1. Good thing I didn’t want this mode, but this is a big FAIL on Elephant Storage’s part. The missing manual and sketchy documentation is a black mark on the otherwise excellent package.

Other options:

Build your own configurations by OWC and Mediasonic (no bays)
Prebuilt: LaCie (pseudo-drive bays)
RAID multi-bay enclosures by many manufacturers:
FirmTek
WiebeTech
Sonnet
LaCie

Addendum:
I would be remiss if I did not mention the new Drobo, from Data Robotics, which now features FireWire 800, as well as robust RAID features at a super price.