DIY Card Reader/Hard Drive RAID Enclosure 

Even though I'm not crafty enough to ever build anything close to these projects, I'm always fascinated with all your DIY stuff. Great job here!

I’d love to see you take another shot at this device with all of your current capabilities and tech options.

I can vouch for those Kingston card readers. I have two of them in a flat desktop USB 3.0 reader to avoid the annoying iMac "reach behind". They are pretty good and only get a little warm. They are only slightly slower than the iMac reader but not by much. That said they are not enclosed. Thanks Caleb. I can tell that you love this stuff.

Hi Caleb! Great job on this DIY project! Word of warning re: power brick for this thing. I used to have one exactly like this (usually comes with up to 2A versions with pretty much any 2-hdd enclosures, such as an ICY-BOX, for instance). After about 2 years of constant use, the power brick stopped delivering all the required current and the symptoms were hard to put a finger on - the enclosure would just fail to start sometimes, but would run for ages if it did manage to start... Apparently the torque required to start spinning the HDDs was drawing too much current. I recommend switching this PSU to a 5A-rated one with the same plug - they are usually sold as RAID / monitor PSU. It will save you headaches down the line and will run cooler overall, too, at minimum cost!

I'm interested in a Thunderbolt 3 version of this.

So cool. I'm buying this Synology DS415+ 4 bay NAS system

This is great! The biggest annoyance for me with my iMac is the SD card port being behind the unit (I miss them on the side!). I tried running some hubs and adaptors on the desk and it just felt a little too unorganized. This has always looked impressive, and this seems not only easy to build, but also fun! When I get some old internal drives, I'm gonna give this a shot!

This is super neat. Just what I needed for my data!

You can also use an ATX power supply rather a simple 12V power supply to feed everything. I know it can be a bit bulkier, but if you have one of those with no use, the project can be even cheaper. Great video, by tthe way!

That was fun to watch. Thanks for sharing. FWIW, I like the final finish of the box. Add a nice matte polyurethane to it to keep it from scratching and you'll be set. Great craftsmanship and presentation.

I really enjoy DIY videos!

Great video! also you could use a 5 volt fan and power it from one of the USB ports.

Loved the batman-esque intro

This is slick. Nice work.

Nicely done. Look forwards to the benchmarks.

I dig the beard... bring it back.

Ok, first of Nice box, nice setup. Now, -Bigger fan hole, and maybe a bigger fan, 40mm fans do not move alot of air, get a 70mm fan in there stat, and use a metal fan grill (they are really nice) and make the how the same size as the fan blades. (though it could be just the angle of the video that makes the hole seam smaller than the fan) -Raid 0 BAD BAD BAD, yes you have a good backup solution, but that does not cover things like failed USB to Sata converter. If power falls or something happens to damage one drive, it could corrupt your data and then your backup data (enable Shadow copy, it takes up more space, but better than nothing if you want to keep Raid 0) -No anti vibration on the hard drives This is what I would do (which is total over kill) Make a small ZFS file sever with 4 hard drives setup in a pair of Mirrored drives (it is the same as a RAID 10 setup), set a linux script that would auto copy sd cards, and auto backup after copy + timed backup. Network share setup, add in a 4 port gigabit card with port teaming for a max total bandwidth of 400 MBps, as a plus it can also backup your PC, upgrading the drives can be done 2 at a time or you can just add a new pair of drives as needed. I would keep the nice separate box for the sd card reader so that it can easily be placed you your desk. Maybe add a button for auto safe dismount.

Wow great video, I clicked over from Fstoppers because it looked so cool but I can't see my self needing anything this fast. Really enjoyed watching the build process tho, I did find it funny you said soft wood stains horribly (which it does) but man do I like how looks on this project.

i like vidos like this much! Im serching for a whiel now for a solution like this thanks!

Awesome vid! I am absolutely going to try to make my own.

1 more for the underdog. good job mate!

Congrats! Very cool piece of hardware! I should build something like that only for RAID 0 or 1 HDDs... Thank you so much for the tutorial! Cheers

Nice build! You should look into a Kreg pocket hole jig to hide screw holes.

Next version you should consider changing the orientation of the card readers by 90 degrees. That will improve the overall cooling of the readers.

awesome video going to try to make something like this soon

Hey Caleb, I guess I'm spamming all your videos today! :P GREAT VIDEO, as usual! I just wanted to suggest an addition, for future builds, that I've used! It is a simple 12v thermostat. You can run it inline with the fan so it only runs when necessary. Furthermore, if using the thermostat you can eliminate the power switch (I can almost guarantee i would flip it off, forgetting that at least one of the media devices was still mounted to my computer!)

great tutorial, thanks! Build looks really good.

Pretty rad dude

Very clever! Thanks for sharing!

nice work.. nice work! bro.. Also in woodworking!

Very interesting..

I like this and I want to see more of it.

Wondering if dust could get into those air intake holes over time and damage the electronics. Maybe a thin open cell foam layer inside the box, covering the holes?

Nice work. Thanks for sharing!

Love this idea. Where can I order one lol

awesome. thank you for sharing your insight on the theme!

very cool and inspiring. thanks!

Great job! Can you show how you use it?

Great Video. I love it.

You could probably used a mini computer like a usb3 pi copy, a mini screen, and wireless keyboard, in that much space. Or sandwich the entire lot between two heat sinks and lose the internal fan.

Honestly, I'm kinda not sure about the using the RAID 0 over USB ... I've got quite a feeling that the USB 3.0 will be limiting the transfer speed and the performance will be quite same as in the case you used one HDD ... this thing works great when you have hardware RAID since it is really working with two SATA lines directly ... in this case, you send half of the data to one HDD, it goes through the USB 3.0 with speed of 5Gbps while the HDD connected to SATA3 could use 6Gbps - the USB 3.0 is the limit in this case (also 5Gbps is only theoretical speed) .... and after you save that half of data you have to save second half on the other HDD .... guess that using the older SATA specifications it could help a little bit, but probably it wouldn't be such an advantage ... Also, using OS level software RAID means lots of CPU operations to just to keep RAID working ...I'm not really sure how upgradable or not-upgradable your Mac is, but I'm pretty sure that sigle internal hard drive would give you much better performance than this USB 3.0 RAID Have you tested the speeds of single HDD vs this RAID? I'm quite curious about the results to be honest ....

This was great! I have a question about an alternative solution for me because I'm not terribly handy. The configuration of drives in this set-up should have the same performance of me using 2 or 3 enclosed external USB drives, yes?

Looks really nice! Tough on a technical level there's much room for improvement :) First of all, you're using software RAID 0 through USB. That's... well, I know that your iMac is the biggest limitation here, but still... how about using Thunderbolt for example? It is based on PCI Express and doesn't have such impact on CPU, it's just more reliable. Those SD card readers... It really looks like a budget solution. Do they even have reasonable speeds? It would be great to see some benchmarks :)

Nice job Woz :)

Fun Fun! I like your DIY stuff, keep it up!

If you plug this raid array into a different computer would it recognize it? Or does it only work with the computer that originally created the raid?

what do you think of an Inateck Aluminium USB-C with RAID 0 and 2 SSDs as a working raid for video editing?

man I fell asleep watching your video and your outro music almost gave me a heart attack!! nice video. I didn't know you were that good with woodworking. I would like to see more videos like this. I used to buy external HDs to expand my storage, but now I have many with different sizes and it is a mess to connect and power all of them. I need something like a NAS or a drobo to put all my external drives in. Any suggestions on a diy solution?

Cool video. I'm about to build one myself but I had a question. Do you think the USB hub ( since it is 12 volts) can power a SATA 3.5 drive if I use one of the dual USB adapters into it? Or should I wire the 3.5 hard drive into the 12 volt source like the fan ( and have one usb going from the 3.5 into the hub)?

I wonder if you could do this with a simple usb-c and ssd's?

Also I have a the Kensington as reader you showed I can say they do stay cool with prolonged use (maybe due to their metal enclosure?) and are just really solid 👍🏻 would recommend. Oh one question, what kind of speeds are you seeing from this raid?

Awesome! Awesome!

nice!

Hi!, can you tell me, how many USB disk can you use using olny using anker USB hub? Regards!

YESSSS!! My man! Love this

good idea. I also have some old hard drives that m gonna put to use. question. do I format the drives before or after the setup ?

What device controls RAID? Where did you set up RAID 0? Great DIY.

What kind of transfer speeds are you getting?

What's the advantage to use a hub over just have the hard drives inside your computer?

Is there a Mark II version in the future? I'm interested.

Awesome!

....Would it be more advantageous to just build a file server with an SD reader and a the Hard Disk raided by the server's OS realtime and access that over Ethernet/Thunderbolt ?

Can I ask what that desktop audio device with the knobs is?

Hi, I have three hdd' that were in a pc that failed, they were in raid 0 and I need to create a box like this that will plug into usb 3.0 so I can get the data off, and it needs to be a device like yours to save cash? Thanks for your help in advance.

SSD on USB must be ridiculously slow. What is the point of raiding them? What speeds do you get?

hi, great video! but why did you go for hhd's instead of ssd's? if speed was your main goal.. i was just wondering :)

Would it be possible to build one of these with 4 drives (for RAID 10)?

I'm thinking about taking your idea, but as a couple people have mentioned, do you have any issues with bottlenecking going from the cards to the drive? I thought about picking up a solid state drive to make this thing super fast, but I'm still struggling with the single usb into the computer. Any insights?

can you use a atx psu to power the HDDs?

Dude! thanks so much. Keepin' it real.

Is the USB on the harddrives enough for Power, so that you dont need to use the 12v input?

What drives would you recommend to buy?

I've noticed it in a few of your videos now... but what is that mixer type thing on your desk?

I'm looking for a RAID software to make array from my usb hdds and i can't find it. Can someone help?

amazing¡ More videos like this¡ ;)

Would this be save for travel?

If i keep this on a table, how can I expect air to come in through the bottom?

Hello.thank you for all your videos... ..is this same like (Docking Station) or is different.I confuse a little.my english is no my first language..I have the iMac mid 2011 27"...can you explain a little more how this work..how you set up with the computer to make the RAID .. Im sorry .I want to know a little more..thank you....Jhon..

Lol iv got a old speaker a huge one that i cut the back front off of and the back installed a few metal poles boom a rack for 300 hdds it curently has 20 in it manly because i haven been able to cool it with a full 300 hdds otherwise id have a fuckton of storage also i forgot to mention that in the bottom there is a shelf whitch i mounted one of those asus motherboard that have a lot of pcie 16x slot got the adpter and mounted them in the bottom and filled them with cheap raid cards so i could use all the hdds if anyone knows a way to cool it without water colling please tell me it has plenty of space in it for cooling systems. If anyone is wonder why im not useing water cooling i used 3 diffrent sets it overheated all 3 thats very rare for a water cooling block to over heat also i can use as much power on it as i want because it has its own 3 fuses on my breaker Panel But yeah it need cooling to operate at full capacity i even managed the shakeing useing springs. The crazest thing is the 6 power supplys

If only you could do RAID 10

how can I setup a hard drive in raid 0 ?

if I use an external power source to a usb hub will that allow it to read more devices plugged into it, I have two hard drives I want to use on a hub I have but it can't seem to read them both at the same time

What kind of read/write speeds was this setup getting you? Sufficient for editing?

Why not using RAID10 built on 4 drives instead of having 2 raid0 drives and 2 backup drives?? It gives the same speed increase... And... power switch for 10$? 40mm fan for 7$? Grommet for 5$?? You paid too much for it, it costs a lot cheaper

This really is a sub-optimal setup. You're round tripping all of the data through a single usb cable and connecting all of your devices to a hub. There is also no automatic functionality. It is also very annoying/difficult to replace any of the cheaply made components once they inevitably bite the dust. Sorry to be such a hater (I love most of your stuff), but in this case the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts.

I think the EH mark 1 is eh. Just kidding I like it.

skip to 3:53

I don't understand the point of making this ? Those two drives in raid are slower than any modern 3.5" drive, so what is the point of copying 3 cards in the same time on that slow drive ? You could copy it faster one by one on some fast drive. On the other note, why would anyone copy three SD cards in the same time, you can shoot all day with one 64GB card with A7s or GH4, and you can copy that card in less than 10 minutes, so there is another point that this doesn't make anything faster, but actually way slower for editing than any two 3.5" drive Raid 0.

4TH

too much work mate

that's not cheap