Dual 3.5in USB 3.0 Hot Swap Trayless SATA Hard Drive Enclosure w/ Fan

When you troubleshoot issues with a hard drive enclosure, there are some quick tests that you can complete to rule out potential problems. You can test to make sure that the following components are working correctly and are not the source of the issue:

• Cables
• Hard drives
• Hard drive enclosure

To test your setup components, try the following:

• Use the cables, hard drives, and hard drive enclosure in another setup to see if the problem is with the components or the setup.
• Use a different cable, hard drive, and hard drive enclosure in your setup to see if the problem persists. Ideally, you should test a component that you know works in another setup.

When you test the hard drive and hard drive enclosure, it is recommended that you do the following:

• To check Disk Management, press the Windows key + R, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Check to see if your hard drive is listed.
• If the hard drive is listed with unallocated space, the hard drive needs to be reformatted. Right-click unallocated and click New Simple Volume. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the reformatting.​

Note: Formatting a hard drive erases all of the data on it. Make sure that you back up all of your data before you reformat the hard drive.​

• If the hard drive is listed as healthy but does not have a drive letter, for example, C:, right-click healthy and click Change Drive Letter and Paths. Click Add, assign a drive letter, and click OK.

Note: A formatted hard drive will not show up in Computer or My Computer until it has a drive letter assigned to it.

Note: Any data currently on the drives will be lost during this process. You need to back up all of your data before you set a RAID mode.

To set up a RAID mode, complete the following:

1. Turn on the hard drive enclosure.
2. Set the RAID switch to the RAID mode that you want to set.
3. Press the RESET button.

In order to rebuild a RAID array, you need to replace a physical drive with an identical drive on the same RAID controller. Although standard RAID levels are generally agreed upon throughout the industry, the implementation varies between manufacturers. RAID arrays are typically not accessible when they are moved to another controller, and data may be unrecoverable if the drives are out of order or have been formatted or accessed by another RAID controller.

If a RAID controller has failed, you should get the exact same model of RAID controller.  

Note: If a drive or drives were damaged, it is possible that the RAID array may be permanently unrecoverable.

RAID should not be considered a replacement for backing up your data. If critical data is going onto a RAID array, you should back up the data on another physical drive or logical set of drives.

Rebuild a RAID array

With the following RAID modes, recovery is possible using the same StarTech.com product. Refer to the following table for the appropriate method to use to recover your RAID array.

To confirm that the Mac OS detects your USB device, complete the following:

1. Click the Apple icon.
2. Click About This Mac.
3. Click More Info or System Report.
4. Under the appropriate heading, confirm that your USB device is listed and that there isn't an error. For example, a network card would be under Ethernet Cards.

You may need to refresh the System Information page after you plug in your device.  To do so, press Command + R with the System Information page open.

Your USB device is listed according to the name of the chipset. To determine the name of the chipset of your USB device, navigate to www.StarTech.com and look on the Technical Specifications tab for your product.

To determine if your hard drive will work in this enclosure, on the product page, click the Technical Specifications tab, and do the following:

• Make sure that the enclosure supports the storage size of your hard drive. If the storage size of your hard drive is larger than what the enclosure was tested with, the hard drive will likely still work with the enclosure.
• Confirm that your hard drive uses the same interface type as the enclosure. For example, IDE, SATA, or M.2.
• Make sure that the enclosure supports the physical size of your hard drive, such as 2.5 inches or 3.5 inches.
• Make sure that the enclosure supports the height of your hard drive. For example, 9 mm or 15 mm.
• Verify that the power consumption of your hard drive doesn’t exceed the power output of the enclosure. If you’re using multiple hard drives, make sure that the combined power consumption of all of the hard drives doesn’t exceed the power output of the enclosure.

Note: Not all StarTech.com devices support each of the RAID modes described below. For more information on the RAID modes that your device supports, refer to the manual or the StarTech.com product page.

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is a virtual disk technology that combines multiple physical drives into one unit. RAID can create redundancy, improve performance, or do both.

RAID should not be considered a replacement for backing up your data. If critical data is going onto a RAID array, it should be backed up to another physical drive or logical set of drives.

The following are terms that are normally used in connection with RAID:

• Striping: data is split between multiple disks.
• Mirroring: data is mirrored between multiple disks.
• Parity: also referred to as a checksum. Parity is a calculated value used to mathematically rebuild data.

Different RAID levels exist for different application requirements.

Refer to the following table for the list of RAID modes offered by some StarTech.com products: