1. The reviewer totally missed the point of the unit by glossing over not just the RAID, but the RAID-5 capability. The former is fairly easy to find nowadays with a lot of things offering RAID 0 and 1. Many offer RAID 10 (combo of 0 and 1). However, short of hardware RAID card from someone like Adaptec, costing probably half what this unit costs, you’re out of luck for RAID-5. And what’s the big deal about RAID-5? As others have said, it’s fast and it’s reliable, and in the right circumstances it’s absolutely critical. Which leads me to….

2. I’m a video professional running a Mac Pro doing HD video editing where this unit is an absolute must. As the OWC founder mentioned, you can record HD uncompressed right to the array. Fantastic, believe me. Moreover, the alternatives to this array are very limited. Using the $700 Apple branded RAID card, you’d need another $1200 worth of SAS SCSI drives AND an enclosure that will probably set you back another $200 easily unless you want to use the internal 4 bays and limit your expandability. Compared to the < $1000 I paid for this enclosure, 8TB worth of 7200rpm SATA drives, and a $50 eSATA card (also from OWC which they were fantastic about helping me choose over the phone) and you'll realize that the reviewer is doing the REAL audience of this product a disservice. I can't gloss over RAID-5 because if my array dies….I'm broke.

So in summation, this reviewer is completely missing the point and ill-informed. I wish this weren't the case because, as it stands now, this product is an absolute MUST for anyone who relies on large (but affordable) arrays to support more than backing up their music and video (and by "music and videos" we all know we really mean "porn"). I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone (and indeed I have) as well as stake my livelihood on it's functionality and value.

That said, I have a bunch of el-cheapo Western Digital external 1TB drives at home backing up my porn because let's face it, if they die I'll just go download more.

Now I think it’s worth mentioning in passing that there were software issues (not having a working serial number is just silly) but the review doesn’t even mention how the unit performed.

That’s not a review, it’s just a rant.

RAID-5 devices are fault tolerant, high speed storage solutions, designed specifically for high-throughput uses with some protection against disk failure. Similar hardware RAID units typically retail for many times the price of this model, which is why the OWC offering is such a breakthrough (if it performs well enough). Compare the CalDigit HDElement – also available at OWC – at $2,309 for the 4TB model (albeit connecting over Mini-SAS, not eSATA) and the LaCie 4big Quadra (though I don’t think I’d trust LaCie to get performance RAID working right).

Most people interested in this device are going to be curious about read/write performace, not the bundled software. OWC claim 240MB/s read and write over eSATA for a 4TB model, compared with 285MB/s write and 361MB/s read for the HDElement mentioned above. For around 1/3rd the price ($799 for 4TB, plus the cost of a suitable eSATA PCIe card), many lower-budget users may find this an acceptable trade-off. It’ll still handle multiple streams of 1080P ProRes422 HQ, for example (probably 3 or 4 in RAID-5: if only the review told us!). JoeRodz, I suspect it would only manage one stream of Uncompressed 10bit HD, and you’d need to be running RAID-0 for that, but it’s a benchmark vendors like to throw out there!

To the reviewer: since you had the unit in your hands, it’s extremely disappointing that you did nothing more than plug it in. Do you even own a disk benchmarking tool? You say, “Maybe I’m missing the point, but I really don’t think so.…”. I’m sorry to confirm that you definitely are.

To OWC:, if you still want someone to take the review unit off your hands at 30% off, please let me know!

Regards, Ben

First, there IS a version for buying just to enclosure (Link here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEQX2KIT0GB/). It’s $429.99 right now, so you can continue to keep track of the decreasing prices of internal hard drives. It will probably be a cheaper option but I assume that not by much. And this brings me to the second point.

How can you possibly compare the Qx2 with a USB2/eSATA solution? It’s not even in the same ballpark. The market for a Qx2 is not the same for those who consider buying a Drobo. And even the Newertech Voyager beats that!

Third, the telephone support complain, BUFF! Total balony. Clearly, you have never been to the OWC website; under contact us? You’ve got the telephone number for sales, for customer service, email and live chat! I repeat LIVE CHAT! I have personally used it and the email support and they have responded to me no later than 1 business day.

Finally, I would like to find out more about this comment of Larry: “Via ESATA you can even capture uncompressed 10 Bit HD Video in real time.” That sounds amazing for a videographer. I thought you would need a minimum 5 bay disk array to do that. I wonder if it is configured under RAID 5 because I know very little about the Nraid (span) setting.

By the way, buy a retail defrag program and then make your case. If you had never defrag a Mac before then you should acknowledge that maybe one that comes as a freebie inside a Qx2 isn’t the best place to start with.

#1 – This product is backed by not only email and web chat support options, but with Toll-Free Phone Tech Support available between 8AM and 8PM M-F, 10AM and 4PM CST Saturdays. Our phone number (800-275-4576) appears all over our website – including the support pages, on our shipping documents, in our email order documents, in our print ads, pretty much everywhere… further – the phone number is on the back cover of the product manual as well as on the inside back cover where we also list our telephone hours I noted above. How the conclusion was reached for this article that we do not provide phone support is a mystery to me. Perhaps there was some confusion with just about every other hardware provider who doesn’t – but we do and we broadcast this loud and clear. We have an expert team of support reps that are based right in our main HQ (not outsourced, etc) in Woodstock, IL.

#2 – this is a Hardware RAID 4-Bay removable solution. We have lower cost storage products and there are certainly inexpensive ways to add storage, but this product is promoted as a highly cost competitive solution for mass storage that is plug and play with built-in hardware RAID. This product supports RAID 0/1/5/10 and non-RAID SPAN via user selectable hardware setting. You can connect it/move it between any system that has either USB2, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, or eSATA with plug and play data read/write accessibility. Via ESATA you can even capture uncompressed 10 Bit HD Video in real time. In fairness, if you’re fine adding 4TB of storage (or any amount really) via individual 1TB Drives using a USB2 solution – this product probably is not for you. We have a USB2+eSATA Docking solution that is bundled with a 1TB drive for about $120 – 4 of those is around 50% of the cost of the QX2 4TB… but in no way comparable and not the market the QX2 was developed for.

#3 The software included with the QX2 includes the full retail version of Prosoft’s award winning Data Backup 3 for Mac OS X, full retail version of the award winning NovaStor NovaBackup for Windows, as well as a full OEM version of Speedtools for the Mac platform. These applications are a value add, but by no means define the product. There should not have been any issue with using the license key we include – this comes from the software manufacturer. In the case of NovaBackup and DataBackup 3 – applications available separately for $40-50, it is a retail license that is included which entitles our customers to the same support and free upgrades that a customer buying these applications at retail are entitled to.

Any issue with the software (or the actual product) a call to our support team and we’d have gladly been on it. Unlike that statement made in this review – and again – we have a full staff here to take calls in addition to email and live chat support. It’s one our principle distinctions and primary operational standards. I hate it when I can’t get a hold of someone when I need help with something and that’s driven me to provide a higher level of service for those that come to Other World Computing.

any questions, concerns, etc – owc @ macsales.com is where you can reach me via email (kill the spaces on either side of the @ sign). I am backed up by a team of over 100 OWC employees that make us what we are and to stand out doing so.

Thank you

- OWC Larry
Founder & CEO
Other World Computing

Update: I trusted @markntravis at his word, which may or may not have been entire accurate on my part. My personal experience with support for this product was not positive at all, and was extremely frustrating. It should not be all that difficult to get a registered utility to work out of the box. It should definitely NOT be expired. Just sayin’…