Recommendations - Hard Drive Enclosure for Dual Drives

try2bhelpful on 09/07/2025 - 16:17

We’ve been given a couple of 5TB hard drives that we want to use as always available backup for our data. We are trying to determine the best bang for buck way of using them. To reduce the chance of catastrophic loss of data we probably want them to be mirrored. We have an old MAC laptop that could act as a file server. We have dabbled in NAS before but the costs for enclosures tends to be pricey. If someone has a well priced NAS or a good alternative we would love to hear the ideas of the brains trust on this site.

We don’t want to spend a bomb but we want something reliable.

Any suggestions you can give us would be gratefully received.

Computing Hard Drive Enclosure

Comments

  • jv on 09/07/2025 - 16:34
    +1

    Just get a dual SATA caddy…

    Make sure it supports drives of that size…

    Something similar to this….

  • bargaino on 09/07/2025 - 16:42
    +2

    Just get a used mini-tower PC with space for the 2 drives. Install your choice of NAS operating system - makes life easier than using generic Windows or Linux.
    If you use Mac, the NAS can act as a TimeMachine server.

    Something like an i5-6th gen, 8GB, under $100. Check the idle power use.
    Towers are a bit scarce, but you'll find one. TrueNAS is good.

  • mskeggs on 09/07/2025 - 18:35
    +1

    There are 2-bay NAS systems for sale on ebay secondhand pretty cheap.
    If it is primarily for a file server, and you don’t want to run more CPU/RAM intensive services, a 10years one is fine, and designed to be power efficient and not need much setup.

  • try2bhelpful on 09/07/2025 - 20:59

    Thanks for the messages.

  • p1 ama on 10/07/2025 - 00:58
    +1

    If you're not particularly tech-savvy and just want an easy solution that can act as a backup for some important files, I'd recommend just picking up a used "mass market" NAS, e.g. from the likes of Synology, QNAP, Asustor…etc. I've had good luck with all of these brands (ultimately, they're all just PCs running various custom firmware / OSes). I've personally committed to never using Synology products again after the whole fiasco of only supporting Synology branded drives in future.

    Plenty for sale on FB Marketplace and the like for very cheap, they are all perfectly fine for general home use. What's more important is keeping offsite backups of things that are truly important, e.g. on the cloud, or physical media at a relative's place (for example).

    There's no need to overspend - unless you have specific needs or want additional CPU power (e.g. for running VMs), then there's not much point. Some have suggested DIY-ing a NAS box, this is a great idea if you want to learn more about networking and can be great value, but for the vast majority of users, a standard consumer-grade off-the-shelf NAS is easier.

    • try2bhelpful on 10/07/2025 - 06:26

      Thank-you. Good comments.

  • skid on 10/07/2025 - 10:01

    Are they portable USB hard drives? If so, you can start off by plugging them into your routers USB port and see how that goes.

    Next step up would be a mini PC.

    After that would be a proper NAS.

    • try2bhelpful on 10/07/2025 - 13:21

      They are internal hard drives.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join