Introduction

Hard drive enclosures have come a long way since they were came into the market. The features offered by these devices have grown exponentially which is really great for the end user. If you read our previous review on VIZO’s URANUS external Enclosure you would see most enclosures that come out today have features such as one touch backup facilities, USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity.

And now ONNTO Corporation have gone a step further and introduced the DataWhale 2 Bay RAID enclosure. It’s a 2 bay hard drive enclosure supporting RAID Striping, Spanning, Mirroring and JBOB (Just a Bunch of Disks) and includes eSATA II connectivity option which has a transfer rate of 3GB/sec. What’s more the DataWhale even supports hard drive hot swapping.

Let’s take a look at the specifications before going on to more details of this really unique device. The DataWhale comes in 3 models, depending on the connectivity options you need. One model comes only with USB 2.0 support, another with USB 2.0/Firewire 800 support and lastly with eSATA/USB 2.0 support. We’re looking at the eSATA/USB 2.0 model here today.

FEATURES

• Provides Striping, Spanning, Mirroring, and JBOD RAID modesfor effective storage management


• Easy configuration of RAID modes, no IT expertise required


• Simplifies RAID management, no software installation required


• Achieves fastest performance via Striping mode


• Ensures data integrity with redundant backup capability


• Eliminates potential downtime, repair costs, and lost sales due to disk failure


• Supports automatic rebuild in Mirroring mode


• Easy monitoring of system status via LED indicators


• Dissipates heat efficiently with aluminum housing


• Maximizes airflow with silent, high quality fan


• Supports current SATA II compliant HDDs, fully backward compatible with SATA 1.0 and SATA 1.0a compliant HDDs
• Simplifies HDD installation; user friendly design enables effortless HDD hot-swapping


• Supports hot-plug and HDD hot-swap


• Flexible connection via an eSATA port

Specifications

• Interface: eSATA x 1; USB 2.0 x 1
• HDD Support: 3.5" SATA HDD* Supporting a maximum of 1TB (Terra Byte)
• RAID Level: Striping (RAID 0), Spanning, Mirroring (RAID 1), JBOD
• Data Transfer Speed: eSATA: up to 300 MB/sec; USB 2.0: up to 480Mb/sec
• System Material: Aluminum case with plastic front and rear panels
• LED: Power on/Power off/Access/Rebuild/Error
• Power Supply: Input: AC 90-264V; Output: DC +12V/2A, +5V/2A
• Dimension: 220 x 85 x 130 mm
  *Identical HDD recommended - same manufacturer, capacity and RPM

The DataWhale 2 Bay RAID system comes in a very attractive packaging. The box comes with an easy to carry handle coupled with detailed description of the unit.

The box gives detailed images of the unit along with detailed specifications to give the buyer a good background of what’s on offer before a purchase. Opening up the box you see the well packed DataWhale drive enclosure along with the box containing the power adapter and cables.

The package consists of the following components.

1. 1 x Data Whale Drive bay unit
2. 1 x Power Adapter with cables
3. 1 x eSATA Data cable
4. 1 x USB Data Cable
5. User Manual and screws

The eSATA cable included with the package is of very high quality and it’s very nice to see Onnto Corporation keeping up high standards on their products.

Looking at the rear of the unit you find two latches which can be pulled up in order to release each drive bay out of the DataWhale to install the drives.

The rear panel consists of all the connectors for the unit, namely the power, USB, and eSATA connectors. Also there’s a power switch and a DIP switch (Also called the Mode Switch in the manual) which allows you to choose which RAID type you want to use. The DataWhale 2 Bay RAID system supports JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks), RAID SPAN, RAID STRIPPING and RAID MIRRORING. If you’re looking for a simple explanation for these RAID types click on this link.

Right next to the DIP switch is a small reset button which cannot be seen clearly in this picture, however it’s there. Each time you change the type of RAID system used, you need to press the RESET Switch so that the RAID controller recognizes the change. To keep the drives cool, there’s also an exhaust fan, which is very quiet.

Going to the front of the DataWhale system, there are 2 LED lights for each drive bay and a single LED at the top centre of the unit. The outer casing of the DataWhale unit is made of Aluminum and the two drive bays are made of plastic. Overall it’s a very well built system and kudos on ONNTO Corporation for their efforts.

First lift the hooks at the top rear of the DataWhale to release the drive bay. Once both bays are out, simply secure the drives onto the bay using the provided screws. There after insert the drive bays back into the DataWhale and you’re ready to turn on the device.

The drives connect directly into the SATA ports on the DataWhale once you insert the drive bays right in.

The DataWhale 2 Bay RAID system is by default set on JBOD so we started our tests with that and moved on to other RAID modes progressively. Before changing the type of RAID system used you will need to shutdown the DataWhale Unit, then change the DIP switch to the appropriate setting, turn it back on and press the RESET Switch.

We found that Windows sometimes was unable to detect the RAID setting that was changed to immediately after resetting the unit. If you face the same situation, simply power off the DataWhale, restart and reset the unit once more. Thereafter delete the volume detected by Windows and rescan for disks. This should bring it up again as you want. Seems like a slight glitch in Windows or the RAID controller on the DataWhale, nevertheless it’s not a major problem. Okay, time to see how the unit performs.

To test the DataWhale 2 Bay RAID unit we used IOMeter and all tests were done using eSATA connection.

Test 1: 100% sequential Reads - 64K Transfer request size (0% Random)

JBOD RAID Setting:

SPAN RAID Setting:

STRIPE RAID Setting:

MIRROR RAID Setting:

Looking at 100% Sequential Reads, SPAN RAID mode seems to give the highest score.

Test 2: 100% Random Reads - 64K Transfer request size (0% Sequential)

JBOD RAID Setting:

SPAN RAID Setting:

STRIPE RAID Setting:

MIRROR RAID Setting:

JBOD RAID Setting:

SPAN RAID Setting:

STRIPE RAID Setting:

MIRROR RAID Setting:

Again SPAN RAID mode gives the best performance which is what should be expected technically as well.

Test 4: 100% Random Writes - 64K Transfer request size (0% Sequential)

JBOD RAID Setting:

SPAN RAID Setting:

STRIPE RAID Setting:

MIRROR RAID Setting:

Hard drive enclosures certainly have come a long way and Onnto Corporation is moving in the right direction. If you’re looking for something more than a simple hard drive enclosure the DataWhale 2 Bay RAID system is the next step up. If you want optimum performance you can set the unit on RAID 0 or for best redundancy the unit also supports RAID 1 mirroring.

The DataWhale also supports hot swap capability so if one of the drives gets corrupted in MIRROR RAID mode you can take out the drive while the system is on and simply replace with a new drive. For testing purposes we did remove one of the drives after configuring the DataWhale in Mirror Mode, and then put another similar capacity drive in it. The DataWhale immediately started setting up the newly inserted drive automatically. Furthermore you do not need to have the DataWhale connected to the PC for the restoration of the drive to work. Even while disconnected as long as the DataWhale is kept turned on, the drive will be restored to match the 1st drive. In the event you turn off the DataWhale while the restoration is taking place, the progress will be stored in the units’ memory and will resume soon after it’s turned back on. This is very impressive and very good news when storing critical information on the DataWhale 2 Bay system.

The Restoration will take from a few minutes to sometimes over one and a half hours depending on how much data needs to be restored. Our drive had 16GB of data and restoration took 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The DataWhale 2 Bay RAID system is a very versatile little device and users will find it very handy. It’s small enough to be highly portable and incorporates really good features that users will benefit from. Since eSATA II is also supported you will not see any lag while copy to and from the DataWhale. The drives perform just like a conventional internal hard drive so even watching movies, songs or playing games stored on the DataWhale will not show any lag.

One of the main problems users might have at the moment is getting their hands on one of these units as it doesn’t seem to be widely available. This should soon change however as this is a very new product from Onnto Corporation and once it reaches all their distributors around the globe more and more retailers should carry them.

We have tried to look for any drawbacks of the unit but honestly can’t really find anything significant to mention here. Maybe something Onnto Corporation could implement in any future releases is some kind of system temperature monitoring unit just to make sure everything is running smoothly. Overall we are really impressed with the DataWhale 2 Bay RAID system and if opting for a full blown NAS system is beyond what’s required then going for one of these devices seem to be the next best logical choice.