Tag Archives: Raid 1

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In my office i've got a pretty sweet 80TB Synology RAID NAS setup for editing videos. But with COVID here i'm working from home mostly (to tend to my kids who have no school). Editing at home from a laptop I'm quickly finding myself in need of an extra portable hard drive.

My requirements for a small drive are 6TB+ with at least Type C USB. I don't need lightning fast SSDs for the projects i'm working on with my laptop, and space is more important than speed. After comparing a few different drives, I happened upon this Oyen Digital 10TB Mini Raid (hardware RAID, not software) - which I ended up purchasing.


Learn More Oyen Digital 10TB Portable RAID Hard Drive

The Oyen Digital drive can be selected to run on bus power, or through an AC adapter (included), and can also be configured for JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, & big mode - No software required. The flexibility for TypeC USB means that I can use it with my newer laptop, or adapt it to work with the older USB on my Mac Pro (trashcan) desktop computer. They are available in various sizes, and even SSD Versions if you're truly in need of speed.

There are physically two disks internally, and when set to JBOD will show the drive as just 1 large disk (maximum space). Using RAID 0 will give you the fastest write speeds as it writes to both drives at the same time - if you need speed. Configure it as RAID 1 and it will be slower on write speeds, but should one drive fail, your data can still be recovered from the second drive. RAID 1 does mean that you'll lose half the capacity because of the redundancy. So there's plenty of options depending on your needs.

I'm guessing for the price, the internal drives aren't something to brag about, but for the total space and hardware RAID features, it's not bad. These Oyen Digital mini RAID drives have been available for a while, has almost full 5 star reviews (at time of this writing). It looks good so far, but obviously I have to through some projects.


Learn More Oyen Digital 10TB Portable RAID Hard Drive

If you haven't heard of the Oyen Digital brand, they've been around for quite a while, and early models supported external storage for XBOX and Playstation consoles. But they also have a line of large RAID enclosures such as this 70TB model on B&H. If you don't need the rugged casing, they also have desktop versions with hardware RAID options.


Oyen Digital RAID Enclosures

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Everyone eventually needs external hard drive space. For most people it might just be basic storage. But if you're a Photo / Video editor you might be interested in fast performance. Or perhaps you're concerned about protecting data from an important project and you want to have a backup mirrored drive (redundancy).

Here's a sub $100 dollar Dual Hard Drive Dock that can do all of those things, while still remaining flexible depending on your needs. With built in hardware, it's incredibly easy to setup. All you need to do is insert blank drives, flick a few dip switches, and press button to initiate your Drive Setup choice.

The Xcellon allows you to dock either larger Desktop 3.5" or smaller 2.5" drives. It even works well with Sandisk Solid State Drives (SSD). And the Dock makes it easy to swap like an old video game cartridge if you happen to store data across multiple drives.

The benefit to these drive docks is you'll end up saving money by just buying bare drives with no enclosures. When your drives are not in use, you can store and protect them in dedicated Hard Drive cases (like these).

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Learn More 3.5" / 2.5" Hard Drive Storage Protection Cases

If you're even more organized, you can create several different types of external storage and swap between them depending on your needs at the current time.

Using JBOD, the dual drive dock is your basic external hard drive. For each hard drive, you'll see a different Storage Drive on your computer.

Using Span is basic storage but takes both drives and only shows you one single external drive on your system. So that you don't have to think about which drive your footage is store in.

If you're looking for fast performance from your drives while editing videos / photos, then you might want to setup two Drives in a Raid0. This will allow your system to send data between both drives simultaneously. But keep in mind there is no redundancy here.

If you're more concerned about redundancy (mirrored data), then you'll want to choose a Raid1 setup. The data written to one drive is automatically duplicated to the other in case of a hard drive failure. A great way to ensure your important client data is safe.

Not quite as fast as Thunderbolt, but the Xcellon Dual Hard Drive Dock is setup to take advantage of increased capable speeds with the latest Type-C USB 3.1 (and backwards compatible).

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Learn-More-sm Xcellon USB Type-C Dual Drive Docking Station

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