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December 21, 2007
Four Bay, Multi-Interface, RAID 5 Enclosure
A Review of the PROAVIO EB4CR Combo-RAID Enclosure
By Arthur Whalem
PROAVIO, a division of Enhance Technology, Inc., is shipping the PROAVIO EB4CR Combo-RAID enclosure ($1199). This new multi-interface, four bay, SATA hardware RAID enclosure provides FW800, FW400, USB 2.0 and eSATA connections. The EB4CR is the first hardware RAID-5 data storage solution that AMUG has reviewed that supports four different interfaces. The EB4CR is configured using four buttons and a 2.5" x 3/4" LCD panel which is located inside the front door of the enclosure.
The combination of a small form factor, RAID-5 protection and the users choice of connectivity may be of interest to computer users who want to expand their data storage capacity. The EB4CR is compatible with PC and Macintosh computers. It supports both SATA I and SATA II hard drives. The front access door displays a blue power light and a yellow status light when closed. Each hard drive bay has its own locking tray mechanism which supports a key. The enclosure measures 10.75" deep, 8.6" high and 5.9" wide. The EB4CR weighs approximately 10 pounds, 11.6 ounces when empty and 16 pounds when four Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATA II hard drives are installed. The purpose of this review is to determine how the EB4CR will perform with a Macintosh computer.
System Requirements
Requires a FW800, FW400, USB 2.0 or an eSATA interface.
Supports Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.
Requires four external 3.5" SATA hard drives.
What's Included?
The EB4CR enclosure includes the disk enclosure, four 3.5" hard drive trays, FW 800, FW400, USB 2.0, eSATA data cables, hard drive mounting screws, keys, power cord and an installation guide on CD.
Rear Connections
The PROAVIO EB4CR four bay multi-interface enclosure has a power cord outlet in the middle of the case and a power on/off switch just to the left of it. Just below the power switch is a DB-9 firmware upgrade port. On the lower panel a FireWire 400 port, two FireWire 800 ports, a USB 2.0 port and an eSATA data port are provided for connecting the EB4CR to the computer.
The PROAVIO EB4CR enclosure provides a sturdy case for mounting external SATA hard drives. The ability to support several different computer interfaces provides the EB4CR with significant connection flexibility.
Fan Access
The PROAVIO EB4CR provides a panel on the rear of the enclosure for easy access to the fan assembly. Two thumb screws on either side of the 80x80x25mm fan mounting panel allow the assembly to be removed from the enclosure. This user serviceable fan design allows the 80mm hard drive cooling fan to be removed without disconnecting any wires. The fan is mounted on a perforated cooling access panel with four screws which makes it easy to replace with a different 80mm cooling fan. The circuit board design on the side of the assembly allows the fan to plug directly into the enclosure power socket when the fan panel is mounted on the rear of the enclosure.
Interface
The PROAVIO EB4CR utilizes drive trays that mount the hard drives with four screws on the bottom of the tray. Hard drives are very easy to mount in these trays. All of the screws must be securely attached, as a loose screw can cause the drive tray to be difficult to remove from the enclosure.
Once the hard drives are mounted in the EB4CR drive trays they can be inserted into the drive bays. Users simply push the tray all the way in and close the handle to connect the hard drive to the SATA backplane. The EB4CR drive trays provide a secure mounting system for external 3.5" SATA hard drive data storage.
To eject a drive from the PROAVIO EB4CR, users push the small arrow on the left side of the drive tray to the right. You can see the arrow circled in red in the image above. This action releases the tray so that it can be removed from the enclosure. The release mechanism does not require a key provided that the bay is left unlocked. Users can lock any of the hard drive bays should they be concerned that someone might remove a hard drive without authorization.
Activity Lights
The PROAVIO EB4CR provides a blue power light on the right side of each drive bay. The blue light shines once the enclosure is turned on whether a hard drive is mounted in the bay or not. A yellow drive presence light is located just below each power light. The yellow light shines when a hard drive is inserted in the drive bay. It also flashes with an orange color as the hard drives access data. Users can only see all of the lights when the enclosure door is open. Once the enclosure front door is closed, the EB4CR only displays the power and status light for bay number two.
Design
The exterior design of the PROAVIO EB4CR provides clean lines and a sleek aluminum finish. While the enclosure has a boxy look to it, the silver aluminum exterior finish is an excellent match with Apple computers. In addition, the ribbed front door and vertical air flow openings add an elegant touch to the design of the EB4CR enclosure. The hard drive activity lights are easily viewable with the door open, yet not distracting when the front panel is closed. The built-in LCD provides the status of the RAID and allows the user to configure all four hard drives using RAID 0, 0+1, RAID 5 or RAID 5 with a spare. In addition, RAID configurations can be rebuilt while connected or disconnected from the computer.
Internal Design
The PROAVIO EB4CR enclosure is designed for mounting four SATA hard drives while using a hardware RAID configuration. The Oxford 924 FireWire Chipset is utilized to provide FW800, FW400, USB 2.0 or eSATA connection support.
If you look inside the EB4CR you will see that the hard drives attach to the front of the SATA backplane and individual SATA cables attach to the rear of the backplane. These SATA data cables are connected to a hardware RAID board mounted above the power supply and under hard drive bay 1. A single SATA data cable connects the RAID board to the Oxford 924 multi-interface board.
Exposed Side View
The PROAVIO EB4CR design supports a wide range of connection options. However, it does not support hot swap and as you will see in the performance data, the multi-drive EB4CR provides limited performance characteristics in comparison to a direct connect or SATA PM enclosure with the same hard drives installed.
Energy Usage
According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the PROAVIO EB4CR enclosure uses 15 watts when empty. When four Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives are installed and idle the enclosure requires 50 watts. Once the RAID set begins copying lots of data the power usage rises to 54-56 watts.
CoolingThe PROAVIO EB4CR has a removable fan module with an Everflow model F128025BL, 80x80x25mm fan installed. Users can easily replace the fan if it should fail. The EB4CR does not pass hard drive SMART data to the SATA host adapter when used with an eSATA connection. As a result, it is difficult to monitor individual hard drive temperatures with this enclosure.
This same style enclosure is used with the PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-M four bay enclosure. It provided 116-118 degree Fahrenheit hard drive temperature results during an AMUG 90 minute heat test. It is possible that the RAID board inside the EB4CR may increase the hard drive temperatures. However, I did not have the necessary temperature probes to perform the EB4CR heat test. The EB4CR has a temperature read out on the LCD. It is a single reading that is not generated from the hard drive SMART data. During these tests, 44C was shown on the LCD display after the enclosure was in use for an extended period of time.
As you can see in the Disk Utility image above the PROAVIO EB4CR does not support SMART data even when an eSATA connection is utilized. Regular SATA direct connect and SATA PM enclosures can display SMART temperatures when Hardware Monitor is used and a SMART compatible SATA host adapter is installed.
Acoustics
The PROAVIO EB4CR is quiet but not silent. When used with a PowerMac G5 the EB4CR fan noise is slightly louder than the computer. When used with the quiet Mac Pro or the MacBook Pro the EB4CR fan and hard drives can easily be heard above any noise generated by the computer. The EB4CR enclosure requires four hard drives to initialize a RAID volume. Anytime four 3.5" hard drives are in operation there will be some acoustical noise. Add the quiet wind sound of the 80mm fan and it is easy to tell when the EB4CR enclosure is turned on, even though it is not loud.
RAID PerformanceThe PROAVIO EB4CR was tested with several configurations during this performance test. A striped RAID set was configured using four Seagate 7200.10 320GB model ST3320620AS hard drives. DiskTester 2.0 1GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how the RAID performs. DiskTester is a Terminal application that measures the combined performance of a volume and the Mac OS X operating system. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 1G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. The tables below display how the EB4CR performs with different Macintosh computers and interfaces.
EB4CR Four Drive 320GB 7200.10 Striped RAID Set
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 70.2 | 81.1 | 65.9 | 79 | 53.3 | 71.3 | 31.1 | 39.6 |
| 10% | 68.8 | 81.5 | 65.5 | 77.9 | 50.3 | 67.7 | 30.9 | 39.5 |
| 20% | 68.9 | 81.4 | 65.1 | 77.5 | 49.9 | 69.6 | 30.8 | 39.5 |
| 30% | 69.4 | 78.7 | 63.8 | 77.6 | 50.3 | 69.1 | 30.8 | 39.4 |
| 40% | 69.5 | 80.9 | 65.4 | 77.4 | 51.6 | 69.4 | 30.8 | 39.5 |
| 50% | 69.1 | 81.4 | 65 | 77.9 | 49.8 | 69.1 | 31.1 | 39.4 |
| 60% | 69 | 81.5 | 64.8 | 78 | 51.6 | 69.8 | 30.6 | 39.5 |
| 70% | 68.8 | 81.4 | 63.1 | 78 | 49 | 69.1 | 31.1 | 39.4 |
| 80% | 68.1 | 81.1 | 65.1 | 77.7 | 51.6 | 69.5 | 30.8 | 39.4 |
| 90% | 68.8 | 81 | 64.9 | 78.1 | 50.2 | 69 | 30.7 | 39.4 |
| 100% | 68.5 | 81.4 | 64.7 | 75.4 | 51 | 69.8 | 30.7 | 39.5 |
| Average | 69 | 81 | 64.9 | 77.7 | 50.8 | 69.4 | 30.8 | 39.5 |
| Interface | eSATA | eSATA | FW 800 | FW 400 | ||||
| Bootable | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Size | 1.16TB | 1.16TB | 1.16TB | 1.16TB |
Creating a four drive hardware based striped RAID set with the PROAVIO EB4CR required approximately 2:15 hours instead of less than a minute with Disk Utility. The striped RAID set created by the EB4CR is not compatible with the Disk Utility format. As a result, if the EB4CR enclosure fails users will need another working EB4CR to try to access the data. In addition, a pure SATA four drive striped RAID set solution will provide approximately 260MB/sec. performance instead of the 70-82MB/sec. provided by the EB4CR.
EB4CR Four Drive 320GB 7200.10 RAID 0+1 Performance
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 41.3 | 45 | 41.9 | 44.2 | 39.4 | 41.1 | 24.3 | 40.2 |
| 10% | 42.2 | 44.8 | 42.4 | 44.2 | 39.1 | 41 | 23.5 | 39.4 |
| 20% | 42 | 44.6 | 41.5 | 44.3 | 39.9 | 40.9 | 24.3 | 40.2 |
| 30% | 42.3 | 44.9 | 42.5 | 44.2 | 38.9 | 40.8 | 23.7 | 39.6 |
| 40% | 41.8 | 45.3 | 42 | 44.4 | 39.4 | 41.5 | 24.3 | 40 |
| 50% | 42 | 45.2 | 41.9 | 44.4 | 38.8 | 40.9 | 23.3 | 39.7 |
| 60% | 41.2 | 45.4 | 41.1 | 44.4 | 39.8 | 41.7 | 24.4 | 40 |
| 70% | 41.8 | 44.9 | 41.6 | 44.4 | 38.7 | 41.5 | 23.6 | 39.7 |
| 80% | 41 | 45.2 | 41.5 | 44.4 | 39.9 | 41.3 | 24.3 | 40 |
| 90% | 41.9 | 45.2 | 42 | 44.4 | 38.9 | 41 | 23.4 | 39.7 |
| 100% | 40.3 | 45.3 | 40.9 | 43.5 | 39.5 | 41.6 | 24.4 | 40 |
| Average | 41.6 | 45.1 | 41.8 | 44.2 | 39.3 | 41.2 | 24 | 39.9 |
| Interface | eSATA | eSATA | FW 800 | FW 400 | ||||
| Bootable | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Size | 595GB | 595GB | 595GB | 595GB |
As you can see in the table above, the four drive EB4CR RAID 0+1 configuration provides performance that is almost twice as slow as the striped RAID set performance with an eSATA connection and approximately 30% slower when FireWire 800 is utilized. FireWire 400 write performance is reduced by 20% with the RAID 0+1 configuration versus a striped RAID set. However, FireWire 400 read performance is not reduced. The lower bandwidth capability of FireWire 400 seems to minimize the performance impact between a striped RAID set configuration and RAID 0+1 while using the PROAVIO EB4CR enclosure.RAID 0+1 stripes the hard drives in bays 1 and 3 and mirrors these drives with bays 2 and 4. As long as both mirrors are not damaged, the PROAVIO EB4CR was able to rebuild a broken RAID in these tests. However, these hardware RAID formats are not compatible with Disk Utility, which limits the ability to recover data should the EB4CR enclosure experience a hardware failure.
RAID 5 PerformanceIn this test, the same four Seagate hard drives were mounted inside the PROAVIO EB4CR and setup in a RAID 5 configuration. The size of the RAID is a little smaller as the space of one hard drive is used for parity information. The RAID 5 configuration causes the RAID size to shrink and the write performance to be reduced.
EB4CR RAID 5 Interface Performance Comparison
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 50.2 | 80.5 | 52.4 | 77.9 | 50 | 67.4 | 28.8 | 40 |
| 10% | 54.1 | 80.2 | 54.9 | 77.9 | 47.6 | 69.7 | 29.2 | 40 |
| 20% | 53.6 | 80.1 | 54.9 | 77.7 | 49.1 | 70.2 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| 30% | 53.2 | 80 | 54.7 | 77.2 | 47.8 | 68.9 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| 40% | 52.8 | 79.8 | 54.3 | 77.6 | 49.6 | 69.6 | 29.6 | 39.9 |
| 50% | 45.6 | 79.7 | 52.2 | 77.5 | 47.5 | 69.1 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| 60% | 43.5 | 81.2 | 49.5 | 77.5 | 49.2 | 70 | 29.9 | 39.9 |
| 70% | 42.9 | 80.8 | 50.4 | 77.5 | 47.2 | 68.8 | 29.7 | 39.9 |
| 80% | 42.7 | 81.1 | 49.1 | 76.4 | 49.6 | 69.6 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| 90% | 43.3 | 79.5 | 50.7 | 76.6 | 47.5 | 68.7 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| 100% | 39.4 | 79.3 | 45.4 | 77 | 49.3 | 70.2 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| Average | 47.4 | 80.2 | 51.7 | 77.3 | 48.6 | 69.3 | 29.5 | 39.9 |
| Interface | eSATA | eSATA | FW 800 | FW 400 | ||||
| Bootable | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Size | 894GB | 894GB | 894GB | 894GB |
The results of the RAID 5 performance test demonstrates that the PROAVIO EB4CR provides slightly higher read performance with the eSATA connection. However, FireWire 800 provides very similar overall performance.
EB4CR RAID 5 + Spare Performance Comparison
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 48.6 | 77.3 | 51.3 | 71.1 | 43.8 | 67.4 | 30.2 | 40.3 |
| 10% | 49.8 | 71.6 | 51.3 | 69.4 | 46.6 | 65 | 28.7 | 39.1 |
| 20% | 50.6 | 74.4 | 51 | 70.9 | 43.1 | 64.7 | 30.9 | 40 |
| 30% | 50.2 | 73.7 | 51.1 | 71.3 | 46.4 | 65.4 | 28.9 | 39.1 |
| 40% | 49 | 74.1 | 50.6 | 69 | 43.7 | 64.6 | 30.7 | 39.8 |
| 50% | 49.5 | 74.2 | 50.2 | 71.1 | 45.7 | 64.7 | 28.8 | 38.9 |
| 60% | 49.5 | 73.8 | 50.1 | 70.1 | 43.8 | 64.2 | 30.9 | 39.8 |
| 70% | 50.1 | 71.6 | 50.2 | 71 | 45.2 | 65.5 | 28.6 | 39 |
| 80% | 50 | 72.3 | 50.5 | 69.6 | 43.6 | 64.1 | 30.8 | 39.8 |
| 90% | 50.2 | 72.8 | 50.5 | 70 | 45.1 | 64.5 | 28.6 | 39 |
| 100% | 50.2 | 71.4 | 50.5 | 68.9 | 43.4 | 64 | 30.7 | 39.4 |
| Average | 49.8 | 73.4 | 50.7 | 70.2 | 44.6 | 64.9 | 29.8 | 39.5 |
| Interface | eSATA | eSATA | FW 800 | FW 400 | ||||
| Bootable | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Size | 596GB | 596GB | 596GB | 596GB |
When the PROAVIO EB4CR is configured in RAID 5 mode with a spare. The top bay is the spare by default. Users can determine which bay is the spare, as that bays activity light will be dormant when the RAID is actively copying data. It is interesting to note that when an eSATA connection is used, the RAID 5 with spare configuration provides about the same write performance as the RAID 5 without a spare. However, the read performance of the spare configuration is approximately 8% slower than a straight RAID 5 setup.
The advantage of RAID 5 + spare (RAID5s) is that if a hard disk fails the EB4CR will beep and automatically start rebuilding the RAID 5 using the spare. Once the user pushes the ESC button the beeping stops. During the rebuilding process the RAID is still available for use but provides lower performance. The downside to RAID 5s is that the size of the RAID volume will be reduced as only three hard drives are used to create the disk array instead of four.
The PROAVIO EB4CR RAID 5s mode is my favorite for this enclosure. It provides good FireWire 800/400 performance while providing automatic rebuilding in the case of a hard drive failure. The EB4CR enclosure excels in it's ability to add data protection to large FireWire connected volumes. RAID 5s provides limited performance loss and a hot spare for automatic rebuilding. This combination maximizes redundancy and performance.
While using four 320GB hard drives requires 2:15 hours to rebuild the EB4CR hardware RAID, four 1TB hard drives require over 6 hours. If large hard drives are installed in the PROAVIO EB4CR, users should expect that the RAID creation process will take a while.
The PROAVIO EB4CR enclosure provides a high quality, four bay, hardware RAID storage solution that is performance optimized for FireWire 800 users. The enclosure provides a reasonably quiet fan design with support for RAID 0, RAID 0+1, RAID 5 and RAID 5 with a spare. The EB4CR uses the Oxford 924 chipset which allows it to support eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. In addition, data cables are provided for all of these connection types.
The extended connection capability of the EB4CR allows it to be used with almost any computer. FireWire 800 and 400 external hard drive connections are heavily used by Macintosh users. The PROAVIO EB4CR Combo-RAID enclosure allows all currently selling Macintosh models to enjoy the redundancy that RAID 0+1, 5 and 5s can provide. While RAID rebuilding is never guaranteed and users still need a backup of important data, rebuilding a RAID 0+1, 5 or 5s volume is much easier than reloading from a backup copy when a hard disk failure occurs.
The PROAVIO EB4CR activity lights provide excellent user feed back and can be seen with the hard drive access door open. Users that do not want to view the activity lights can simply close the front door of the enclosure. The hard drive trays provided with the EB4CR are interchangeable with the Sonnet Fusion 400/ 500P and the EnhanceBox E8-ML and E8-PM enclosures. This is a nice feature for users that work with multiple enclosures. In addition, the EB4CR is easily modifiable. The side panels can be removed with three screws on the rear of the enclosure. The 80mm cooling fan assembly unscrews and the front door can be removed by releasing an enclosure foot and loosening three screws on the bottom. The PROAVIO EB4CR does has some limitations. It does not provide the high performance that is achievable with a four drive direct connect or SATA PM enclosure and a SATA host adapter. It also does not share SMART data with Mac OS X and requires several hours just to create a striped RAID set. While the EB4CR can connect to many different computers, performance minded SATA host adapter users will want a pure SATA interface which provides considerably higher performance.
With that said, the PROAVIO EB4CR opens up the world of RAID redundancy to FireWire 800/400 users. If FireWire 800 is fast enough for your needs the EB4CR can expand your computing environment by adding hardware RAID redundancy.
Pros
PROAVIO EB4CR works with any OS with eSATA, FW 800/400 or USB 2.0.
RAID can be created or rebuilt with or without a computer connected.
Supports four external 3.5" SATA hard drives including 1TB models.
Provides hardware RAID 0, 0+1, 5 and 5 with spare configurations.
Automatic RAID rebuilding feature with RAD 5, 5s and 0+1.
LCD displays RAID mode and rebuilding progress.
Firmware version 1.0.3 supports volumes over 2TB.
User serviceable 80mm fan module.
Reasonably quiet operation.
LED activity lights.
Lockable hard drive bays.
Looks great with Apple Computers.
Easy access enclosure for modifications.
Well designed, easy to use and easy to install.
Cons
No power switch on front panel. (Only on the rear)
No SATA hot swap compatibility.
Does not support SMART data.
Requires a minimum of four hard drives to initialize the enclosure.
Initializing RAID 0 requires over two hours with four 320GB HDs.
eSATA - Measured 47.4MB/sec. average write performance with RAID 5.
eSATA - Measured 69MB/sec. average write performance with RAID 0.
Hardware RAID formats are not compatible with Disk Utility formats.
Enclosure corners may seem sharp.
PROAVIO EB4CR gets 3.5 AMUGs out of 5!
MacBook Pro, MacBook, iMac and Mac mini users looking for a RAID 5 data storage solution will find the PROAVIO EB4CR Combo-RAID enclosure can easily provide this feature. The Oxford 924 chipset utilized in the EB4CR supports connections with all currently shipping Macintosh models. During these tests, each redundant EB4CR RAID level was able to rebuild when a hard drive failure was simulated by removing a drive from the enclosure and inserting a replacement hard disk.
Contact Information:PROAVIO, U.S.A.
12221 Florence Ave.
Santa Fe Springs, CA. 90670 USA
Phone: 1-562-777-3488
http://www.proavio.com/
info@proavio.com
Copyright 2007
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