SABRENT USB 3.2 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Tray Less Docking Station (DS-SC4B)

I recently upgraded my Linux workstation to the latest Devuan. I have three large media drives (14TB) which I use for my home cinema (ripped dvd, bd etc via Kodi). The thing about those hard drives is, they are loud when running, and I am sensitive to hum, and the workstation is right next to me all day long. So I generally like to keep the drives asleep (spun down) using hdparm. That worked previously on Debian Stretch, but it no longer works on the latest stable, if I want to have utilities like k3b and rhythmbox then they also pull in udisks2, which wakes my internal hard drives up every few minutes. So aside from removing udisks2 and doing without k3b, the only way to fix this was to move the drives to an external enclosure.Most of the enclosures out there seem to either be really cheap and simple, and they literally toast your hard drive due to lack of adequate cooling; or else they are high-end NAS with their own Operating System and networking. Which you obviously pay for, and I really don't need all that. I just want an enclosure, connecting via USB 3, with good cooling.I tried a different brand unit initially by Orico, which worked fine but the drives ran very hot. So I sent that back and looked further, and found these ones by Sabrent. Encouragingly, when I searched for "cool" and "hot" in the reviews, most people seemed to say that it does have adequate cooling. And it also just "gets out of the way".Now I have used it for a couple of days, I can confirm this is probably the best drive enclosure I have ever used. It is made of metal, very solid, which is refreshing (the Orico, for example, had plastic trays). Insertion of the drives is simple, if you're careful (I read one review that talked about breaking the door latch mechanism because they pushed the drive in too much before closing the door, apparently you leave 1/4" and then let the door closing do the rest). I found that the doors have to be pressed a bit more to get that final "click", otherwise the latch is kind of loose. But once the click happens, just a little one, it's solid.I really like the power button for the individual drives. I agree with others that perhaps it would be better if the default upon powering up would be to power on all occupied bays, but this doesn't really affect me much. I usually keep the drives off anyway, except when in use. The power buttons allow me to power down the drives after I am done watching TV. I unmount all the drives (single script does that quickly) and then manually go through the buttons. You have to press for three seconds each one, but that is a minor hassle. My only minor niggle is that the power buttons are black on black, so it can be hard to find them in a dimly lit room.Basically this thing seems to work, and it's fast, relatively quiet (I am sensitive to noise, and I don't really hear the fan at all - much more noticeable is the hum from the drives themselves, which can't be helped). And it works with Linux. It just... works. Does what I want, nothing more, and looks good on the desk, and feels solid. Very happy! I hope they keep making this one and don't mess it up with some stupid redesign down the line, as many companies seem to do these days.I can't speak to any issues with using more than one drive at a time, as some others talk about. However for my use case, I am generally only using one at a time anyway. I also use one of the bays for a backup drive, but even then, it's the only one being used when I do that. So all seems well, very satisfied.

This is absolutely one of the best tech purchases I've made: I can't recommend it highly enough.I purchased this because I needed an easy-to-use external storage device capable of handling both 3.5" spinning platter HDDs and 2.5" SSD drives. The 2.5" drives need a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter, which can be had for $7 to $20-ish depending on the materials used. I'm a hobbyist photographer and I wanted an easy way to share digital images between macOS and Win10 computers. This completely fits the bill. Here's what I love about this device:- It is absolutely built like a tank - all metal, heavy, great construction- small footprint - it's roughly the size of a small toaster- no crazy or irritating drive brackets needed - you just pop open the drawer, slide the drive in, and close the door - viola! All set to use- individual power buttons! This is huge. I can load up the device with five separate drives, and select which ones I want to be active - under macOS or Windows 10, the drives are automatically detected when powered up, and it's easy to eject / unmount them when done and shut power off to the drive- the USB 3.2 Gen 2 connection provides full drive speed for HDD and SATA3 SSD drives - access is just as fast as connecting the drives directly to the SATA connectors on the motherboard- the unit also provides a USB-C connector on the back of the unit, so it's possible to attach a second device if neededAll in all, I'd recommend this external enclosure without hesitation. Granted, It's a bit on the pricey side and the small, single drive external USB enclosures are much less expensive. Also, given the size and weight, it's definitely designed to be a desktop unit - you're not going to throw this in your laptop bag or take it on a flight with you. There are much better options if that's what your need is.Keep in mind that this the connection speed for USB 3.2 Gen 2 is a maximum of 10 Gbps, or 1250 MB/s, which is absolutely more than enough for SATA3 drives. This speed is ample for digital photography needs. I've used the lastest versions of Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, ON1 Photo Raw, and the DxO NiK Collection apps without hiccup.If you're a videographer, however, this likely will not give you the speed you'll need, particularly if you're shooting in large format (e.g., 4K or greater) and/or RAW formats. In this case, a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 type drive would be a far better choice. If you're on the macOS platform, your iMac or Macbook should support these connections if you're using anything reasonably current. If you're on the PC platorm under Windows 10 or 11 and a PC builder, then your choices are a bit more constrained - Asrock has licensed Thunderbolt from Intel and several of their motherboards support TB 3 or TB 4. Alternatively, some Gigabyte MB's have a TB 3 header, which can connect to their PCIe expansion card ($89 as of the time of this review). A quick search on the internet should give you an idea of what your options are.BTW, this drive enclosure does NOT support hardware RAID. If that's what you need, you'll have to look elsewhere. Under both macOS and Windows 10, there are software RAID-ish options available - I haven't had the need or desire to attempt these, but in theory, they are possible.Good luck and hope this helps!