Yottamaster USB-C 4 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure with Daisy Chain, USB3.1 Gen2 External HDD Enclosure for SATA 2.5″/3.5″ Drive, Support 4x18TB & USB C Connection with 2 More Enclosures-[FS4C3]
Professional Grade Preferred Storage Solution
With TWO USB3.1 Type-C 10Gbps inteface on the back, four universal drive bays for either 2.5″ or 3.5″ HDD/SSD in any combination,
Allowing daisy-chain up to 2 of these capacity devices together for up to a enormous 216TB of space. As a huge enterprise-grade data center, now vast amounts of footage, film and video editors can take advantage of this desk storage system with flexible capacity combination to handle the voracious hard drive space appetite of RAW, 4K, 8K, large format, and VR workflows.
Even for the demanding workflows, project archives, and system backups where reliability and versatile performance count, is still a preferred solution.
Warning!! (Some information you have to know before purchasing.)
1. Hot swap is not suitable for your hard drives.
- It’s highly recommended that you eject the hard drive from the computer first when you want to add/remove any drive.
- Forcibly pulling out or inserting the hard disk during read&write may cause data loss.
2. About daisy chaining usb devices.
- When you daisy chaining other USB devices, your computer will recognize all independent hard drives.
- When you choose eject device, all devices connected via daisy chain will be ejected as a whole.
3. The device will enter sleep mode without data exchange within 10 minutes.
- Open any file in any hard disk and the device will start to operate normally.
- (The more disks are loaded, the wake-up time may be a little longer, so be patient for some time.)
| | | |
|---|---|---|
150W Power Supply InsideThe strong power supply can provide up to 280W instantaneous power and output in 150W rated power, Which can completely ensure stable operation of hard drives when you insert FOUR 16TB HDD into the enclosure. | Heat-dissipationBuilt with a heat-dissipating aluminum enclosure, a whisper-quiet fan,help to rapid cooling. Runs cool and quietly, making it ideal for noise-sensitive environments. | Metal Removeable Drive TraysDesigned to house up to four 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives, the universal removable metal trays is for easy installation of the HDD/SSD. 2.5″ HDD/SSD: Fixed with 4 screws at the bottom. 3.5″ HDD: Fixed with 2 screws on both sides. |
| | | |
|---|---|---|
Lightly Press Left
| Vibration-absorbing foot
| LED indicator shows working state4 indicator lights monitor the status of each disk.
|
 |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ideal for | NAS Expansion / Small&Medium-sized Enterprise | NAS Expansion / Small&Medium-sized Enterprise | PC DIY Experts and Enthusiastic gamers | Individuals & Family | Individuals & Family |
| Interface | USB 3.1 Type-C | USB3.0 Type-B | USB3.0 Type-B | USB3.0 Type-B | USB3.0 Type-B |
| Transfer Rate | 10Gbps | 5Gbps | 5Gbps | 5Gbps | 5Gbps |
| Max. number of HDDs/SSDs | 4 X 2.5″/3.5″SATA HDD/SSD | 5 X 2.5″/3.5″SATA HDD/SSD | 5 X 2.5″/3.5″SATA HDD/SSD | 4 X 2.5″/3.5″SATA HDD/SSD | 5 X 2.5″/3.5″SATA HDD/SSD |
| Support Capacity | 64TB Max (Daisy Chain 192TB max) | 80TB Max | 80TB Max | 64TB Max | 64TB Max |
| Fan | 80mm Slient Fan | 80mm Slient Fan | 80mm Slient Fan | 80mm Slient Fan | 80mm Slient Fan |
| Power Supply | Build-in 150W | Build-in 150W | Build-in 150W | Adapter 12V/6.5A | Adapter 12V/6.5A |
| Support System | Windows / Mac /Linux | Windows / Mac /Linux | Windows / Mac /Linux | Windows / Mac /Linux | Windows / Mac /Linux |
| RAID mode | / | RAID 0,1,3,5,10, SPAN，CLONE,Normal | RAID 0,1,3,5,10, SPAN，CLONE,Normal | / | RAID 0,1,3,5,10, SPAN，CLONE,Normal |
| Dimensions: | 33.7 x 28.1 x 22 cm; 3.4 Kilograms |
| Model: | Yottamaster-FS4C3 |
| Manufacture: | Yottamaster |
| Origin: | China |
Not always compatable with your usb 3 ports...beware
This system comes with a USB B to USB 3 cable but I have had problems of system not recognising the FS4
unit and there fore unuseable. After a great deal of playing around changing drivers etc etc I found the easiest resolution was to use a USB B to USB c cable runs at 5GBits solved the problem. I did contact Yottamaster but their answer was a ‘may be incompatible with the system’…no solution or even a suggestion.
So its a good unit and works very well when connected properly. So make sure u have a usb B to USB c cable as well. As it stands still awaiting a reason or a free cable…be nice if it was supplied….but hey ho…..
but as with most chinese stuff you are on your own it appears…
Yottamaster 5 bay enclosure
Would have liked individually powered bay option but understand this is not possible because of possible raid setup.
Can’t find a way on the enclosure to set up a raid option even when it shows jumper settings in instruction manual? But no way to access or find out how to do it!
OK for a raspberryPi powered NAS
I was looking for an enclosure to run a NAS powered by a raspberryPi
I am overall happy with the results.
My 2 existing drives where recognised instantly from previous setup
Noise level and heat is acceptable
Great bit of kit for an affordable RAID setup
Bought on Black Friday as I wanted to add an external RAID rig to my Synology DS1019+ NAS. I installed 5x8TB Seagate discs (see my other reviews) and set them up for RAID5 by using the jumpers on the back of the rig. Using jumpers does seem a bit ‘old school’ but it’s easy enough when you read through the instructions. Just make sure there’s nothing on the discs before you change RAID modes as you will lose all the data on the discs. Once it was set up I plugged it into a PC to make sure it was functional, and indeed it was seen as a 32TB drive (4x8TB, and 1x8TB for error correction). Read and Write times seemed as expected, although I confess I have not done any bench marking against one of the single discs.
Once it was plugged into my NAS, it was usable as a 32TB drive. I was so impressed, that I bought another 5 disc Yottamaster and 5x8TB Seagate external discs which I then cannibalised to fit in the Yottamaster. It’s been running 24/7 since November storing files for a plex server. No issues at all so far, but will report back here if that changes…
Why isn’t it 5 stars?
* The caddys use screws rather than quick release, which is a bit ‘last year’, this is a minor niggle.
* The fan, although quiet, isn’t silent. But it’s not loud enough to be annoying with all the other server fans running, and can be changed easy enough if it’s that annoying.
* The dip switches on the back to select the RAID configuration just seems a bit ‘Heath Robinson’
* A good feature would be to allow say 3 discs to be used as RAID, and the remaining 2 as individual drives
* It’s not clear whether this supports single discs of 18TB with a maximum capacity of 90TB, or a maximum capacity of 80TB…
However, overall, It’s a good little unit which so far seems to operate pretty solidly.
Just the job.
I wanted a stacking unit for my 4 hard drives I have sitting on my desk behind my screen. Could not decide between Yottamaster and Orico. Decided on Yottamaster 4 bay enclosure. When it arrived I was very impressed with the quality of the product – The whole case including the trays to hold the hard disks were strong and made of metal (not plastic) – a good solid job – well finished. Unfortunately when I screwed a hard drive into a tray and put it in the enclosure – the drive’s content did not show up on my PC – instead I got a message asking me to format it. Which meant I would lose all of my work and files on the hard drive.I emailed my problem to Yottamaster with ALL the details (via Amazon) and got a reply straight away. The rep explained that the fault was caused by my hard disk being partitioned and that I should remove it from the Yottamaster and reconnect it to my PC. Then I should back up all the files on it to another drive before removing the partition. I did this using a great free program called IM Partition Resizer and then after replacing the drive into the Yottamaster I formatted it and re-installed my files back to it. My PC found the HD and all the files were visible. I then installed my 3 other hard drives in the Yottamaster stacking Unit and all are working perfectly. Many thanks to the (prompt) helpful support offered by Yottamaster.
Cannot have 1x RAID-1 and two more JBODs, just 2 x RAID-1 (2 + 2) or 4 x JBOD
Bit of a mixed bag. Hardware is fantastic and very well made. Great kit for the price and unlike many I like having the internal PSU. I bought it to be a NAS. Yeah, I know, why didn’t I just buy a NAS but as a developer, most NAS processors are rubbish and I wanted something powerful but low of electricity bills. Also having the storage array separate from the computer means if you have a problem with the server you can just plug the DAS into your laptop to sort it out! My server is a Raspberry Pi 4B (see black box on top (luniker case – set up for USB boot) – box at the side is DVBSky USB DVB-S2 box for recording under MythTV). I wanted to have:
1) Little 40GB SSD as Pi boot drive (just old spare)
2) 6TB Seagate backup hard disk
3) 2 x 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS drives (RAID-1) as my main storage.
You cannot do that with the switch configurations. If you set (1,2,3,4) as (DOWN, DOWN, UP, UP) you get 2 x RAID-1 disks. Maybe somebody can figure out a way but I didn’t. What I ended up doing is just having 4 x JBODs and doing software RAID-1 by MDADM (OpenMediaVault on 64-bit Debian “Buster”). Yeah I know, you’re ot supposed to do RAID over USB but I’ve been using it for years and never had a problem. You just create Physical Volume/Logical Group/Logical Volume for each disk (in OMV) and they appear as “disks” you can use for MDADM. It isn’t ideal and the hardware RAID would be much faster. That was the point of buying the RAID version! In the future I might but two new hard disks (maybe 2 x 8TB), do 2 x RAID-1 and have the 4TB RAID-1 pair as the Pi boot + extra storage.
I just wish Yottamaster had thought about this more. The hardware is capable of so much more but the configuration method is rubbish. I’m sure it will be a great DAS and a great NAS using the Pi 4 (which is utterly superb with 64-bit (beta) RaspiOS) but not being able to use hardware RAID-1 now is disappointing.
I would recommend this but with big reservations. Your use-case has to be 2x RAID-1, RAID-5 or RAID-10. I would got down the path of having a Pi with a DAS again though.
Je l’utilise en backup de mon serveur Synology par un port USB3 avec l’appli de Synology en mode miroir. C’est rapide et prcis. L’installation et le rglage du mode RAID ne prsentent pas de difficult. Je l’ai format en NTFS pour pouvoir le relire sur un PC en cas d’avarie du serveur. Je l’ai install en RAID0, c’est plus rapide et a donne un maximum de capacit. Certains disent que si un disque se plante, on perd tout. C’est vrai mais on limite considrablement le risque en installant des disques neufs identiques qui sont senss avoir la mme dure de vie. De toutes faons la reconstruction avec les modes utilisant un disque de secours est tellement fastidieuse que je prfre rinstaller en cas de problme. Si on hsite on peut toujours faire un double backup mais il est peu probable que le serveur et le backup tombent en panne en mme temps. A noter aussi que la rapidit du systme RAID0 permet d’utiliser des disques 5400t/mn qui chauffent moins et s’usent moins vite.
Buscaba un equipo que me permitiera ampliar las capacidades de almacenamiento de mi Servidor NAS Synology DS212+ a travs de sus puertos USB.
Tras varios intentos con otros productos de diferentes fabricantes (Orico, SilverStone) no consegua la compatibilidad que me permitiera acceder a todas las unidades (Se detectaba la unidad de almacenamiento, pero slo una de las bahas era visible por el NAS).
Consult con Yottamaster y me garantizaron la compatibilidad. Fue recibir el equipo, instalarlo y ah estaban los cinco discos duros completamente accesibles por el NAS. PERFECTO!
La unidad es tremendamente fcil de instalar y configurar (Las opciones RAID se seleccionan con unos interruptores en la aprte posterior del equipo) y su diseo parece robusto y fiable (Aluminio).
Las unidades quedan firmemente sujetas a las badejas extraibles mediante unos tornillos proporcionados por el fabricante. Gran detalle: Adjunta el destornillador apropiado junto con los tornillos.
La disipacin de temperatura de las unidades es buena gracias al ventilador posterior.
La nica cuestin mejorable tiene que ver, justamente, con el ventilador instalado. No es que sea muy ruidoso, pero ms silencioso sera ideal. Seguramente opte por substituirlo po otro modelo (Noctua?), ya que el acceso posterior al mismo es muy fcil.
El otro aspecto mejorable es que el ventilador no entra en reposo/parada aunque la unidad no est en uso. Siempre est funcionando al mismo nivel, no adapta la rotacin a la temperatura del equipo. Pero quiz esto sea pedir demasiado…
En definitiva, el producto que estaba buscando con una relacin calidad-precio correcta.
Recomendara su compra.
Useful enclosure for accessing 5 SATA HDDs - either individually or as a RAID array.
When I first came across this FS5RU3 drive enclosure, I was uncertain of the actual colour of the case. I e-mailed the company to enquire as to ‘what shade of grey’ the case was, as well as a couple of other technical issues (such as whether the caddies were plastic or metal – they’re metal, with some plastic bits! – what speed the processors – plural! – ran at, how much RAM was incorporated and whether it was was expandable by the user or not.) I also pointed out that the 10% Discount code they offered through their website wasn’t currently working on Amazon.co.uk (although they claim that it ought to!) but sadly, to date I have not had a response from the company, YottaMaster.
When the substantial, very robust, thick ‘anodised aluminium’ enclosure arrived (courtesy of Amazon.co.uk) and was unpacked, the first small obstacle encountered was that the drive caddies couldn’t be ejected from the chassis. [It seems that the plastic catches don’t retract quite sufficiently – at least not without a little extra force being applied! – for the caddy to be ejected. These caddies are robust, with no sharp edges to the metal parts: only time will tell how long-lived they will be since, unlike some other NAS RAID devices, the drives need to be attached to the caddies which act like sleds, in order to be ejected. A small screwdriver and a collection of appropriate small screws to attach the drives to the sleds are supplied with the enclosure. The mounting holes for the 2.5″ HDDs and SSDs are on the underside of the sled, whilst those for 3.5″ HDDs are on the sides.
The FS5U3 enclosure can accommodate up to 5 SATA drives – be they SSDs or HDDs or a mixture of the two – each of up to 16TB, giving a total storage capacity of 80TB. The data connection for this model is through an ‘expanded’ Type-B USB 3.0 socket [Note: The description on the Amazon page incorrectly identifies this as a USB 3.1 Gen 1 connector] whereas the PS500RU (which is designated as “suitable for home/office users”) features a USB-C connector. The appropriate 1.1m USB cable is supplied, and both YottaMaster enclosures should therefore have a maximum throughput of 5Gb/s. Copying a large file from one HDD on my PC to a drive in the FS5U3 showed an average throughput of 128MB/s, which is suitably fast, if not blazingly so!
One reason I opted for the FS5U3 enclosure (as opposed to the newer PS500RC3) was the inclusion of a 240v PSU, which I personally find more convenient than the external 6.5A ‘power brick’ of the newer model. The internal PSU also enables a small fan (which is not entirely noise-free) which runs quite slowly inside the enclosure, keeping the air inside the cabinet moving, and the drives somewhat cooler.
The YottaMaster devices can operate in many different modes, from JBOD through the RAID series (1-5) but interestingly can also operate as 5 individual disks when set to PM mode, and they’re then not treated as a ‘spanned’ set. In this mode, if one drive were to fail, the remaining drives would not be affected unlike a RAID system.
If the drives are not accessed for a number of minutes – YottaMaster claim it’s 10 by default – then the drives (and the fan!) are allowed to spin down. They spin up again in just a few seconds if a drive needs to be read from or written to, and YottaMaster have a software download which allows the user to set this to ‘0’ – which suspends the sleep function – or to some other value to suit the user’s needs.
The FS5U3 appears to be quite happy operating with Windows 10; I have no means to test it with an Apple Mac or with Linux. Nor can I confirm the amount of RAM fitted, or whether it is upgradable. As for and the speed of the processors, I can only say that they appear to be adequate for the task they need to perform.
Great value and easy to ise
Easy to get up and running very quickly. Four stars only because it’s not as quiet as I had hoped.
Einfache Ersteinrichtung!
Die Schalter fr den Raid-Type einstellen, Festplatten einbauen. Fertig. (Achtung: ich denke bei diesem Preis ist es technisch nicht mglich Raid-Typen zu verndern oder Festplatten zum Raid hinzu zufgen, ohne alle Daten zu lschen.)
Ottimo per gestire lo storage esterno dei dati senza soluzioni RAID
Il prodotto di semplicissimo utilizzo e installazione. Semplicemente agisce da case esterno per 5 hard disk da 3.5″ o da 2.5″, con un’unica presa di corrente e un unico cavo. Utile se si hanno pi HDD esterni con contenuti diversi e non si vuole avere un case separato per ciascuno di essi. Pu essere anche predisposto per la copia dei dati nelle varie modalit RAID; personalmente non ho testato questa soluzione.
L’inserimento dei dischi facilissimo, l’unit in gran parte di plastica ma discretamente robusta. Avevo bisogno di un prodotto del genere per semplificare le mie opzioni di archiviazione esterna, e sono soddisfatto. Il prezzo piuttosto alto per un semplice case senza opzioni NAS, ma anche vero che per un NAS a 5 bay si spende anche il doppio.
So far, so good
I’ve now had one of these units for about 3 weeks or so and it is used as USB3 attached storage on a Synology DS 218j NAS box on our home Cat5E network, and I’m reasonably pleased with it, as follows:
– It has “stayed alive” without much in the way of remote access issues, although it does appear to take some time to become available in the mornings after not being accessed overnight – but these delays could be down to either the PC’s or the DS218J – and then access to the folders & sub-folders on the 4x 3TB drives is almost “instanteous”
– it does reboot automatically when the power is switched OFF and then ON again, which was a critical issue for our use – wasn’t sure from the reviews whether it would do that as some of them indicated that it would have to be manually rebooted after the power is restored!
– the drive doors do close firmly and seem to keep the drives securely attached to the sockets in the vertical backplane.
– It did come with more drive-securing screws than were actually required -> means I have some spares
OTOH, I wasn’t too happy with the difficulty I had opening and closing one of the drive bay doors to get the caddy out, and then back in, because the catch was reluctant to release.
Soluzione ideale per backup di dimensioni notevoli
La possibilit di avere un raid 5 e contemporaneamente USB ad alta velocit lo rendono ideale per backup di grosse dimensioni.
L’installazione rapida con i manuali che spiengano in pochi passi come configurare i volumi. Leggere attentamente il manuale per l’impostazione degli switch e la sequenza per rendere operativo in 3 minuti il tutto. Lo consiglio.
Good value for a two-bay drive enclosure.
I liked the ease for fitting the drives. The options for using it as RAID drive or as independent drives are easy to understand and to set the switches. I am using the drives separately to back up two PCs on my network so don’t know how it would perform in RAID mode. The one feature I don’t like is the power switch is a soft switch. I made the mistake of powering the drives from a smart power strip so when I turn of the PC the drive turns off. Not a problem except it doesn’t turn on with the PC again, I have to press the power button which is on the back and not very accessible at present.
I want to start by saying, that right out of the box I replaced the stock fan with a Noctua (NF-R8 redux-1800 80mm) as I had concerns for the noise and heat levels with the stock fan.
I currently have 4 of the 5 bays in use with two 12TB WD reds and two 10TB WD reds running as JBODs. I use this array for personal plex media storage, and the Enclosure connects to a Shield Pro 2019 that hosts the plex server. The Shield Pro 2019 has no problems interfacing with this enclosure and provides a stylish solution to my storage needs. The design is very modern, and each drive bay has a blue HDD LED indicator which isn’t at all intrusive or distracting. This thing sits next to my TV and I never notice it.
Replacing the stock fan was simple, I just had to remove a few screws at the back of the enclosure and the back plate comes off exposing the fan and fan header. With the Noctua fan installed I’ve yet to notice any fan noise! The only noise that comes from the enclosure is when the disks are spinning up which is to be expected. As to the temperatures, as far as I’m aware the drives are remaining cool and not overheating.
The only negatives I have with this enclosure are that the drive sleds are not toolless and instead opt for screws, which in my opinion is an antiquated way of mounting hard drives. And that the firmware does not allow you to disable sleep mode for the drives. If you buy the RAID version of this enclosure, I believe that the option is available but with this version it isn’t.
All in all I recommend this product, however in hindsight I probably should have bought the RAID version so that I can disable sleep mode for the drives.
This is my second unit and it is already in use while I’m writing this. It is both mechanically and electrically impressive. Precision manufactured Aluminium case with a nice satin scratch resistant surface, dimensions 135 mm width x 165 mm height x 265 depth, fully loaded it weighs in at 5.4 kg.
The fan at the rear is audible but not irritating, more of a low hush. It seems to run at a constant speed and the air throughput is sufficient to keep the case cool. The trays are made from metal with mounting holes for both 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives. They fit perfectly, plastic guide rails on each side prevent rattling in case of drive vibration.
The data connection is a single USB-3 Standard-B connector, a 1 m cable with USB-A at the other end is provided.
I haven’t done any real speed tests yet but it is noticeably fast. It happily accepts disk drives in any format: I have added NTFS, exFAT, HFS+ and as my standard arrangement ZFS formatted drives in any mix and providing the computer at the other end of the cable can handle that format, it will show up.
My preferred setup is two pairs of mirrored ZFS pools: in case a disk goes south, you just swap it with another one of equal size. Much faster than re-silvering a RAID array. There is a 5-bay version available which I would recommend if you want to go for a RAID 5 array.
My first unit has been running since January without a hitch. Very pleased with it.
My initial impressions of the Yottamaster enclosure were mixed. After removing it from the packaging it was reassuringly heavy, looks very nice and seems well made. Initially the top two drive bays were stuck and couldn’t be removed, but after removing all the other bays I realised that they’d shifted up and locked into the case, moving them down slightly corrected the issue and they have remained trouble-free since. The raid configuration via dip switches does seem very old fashioned and something I’ve seen being used since the 1990s so something I’d encountered plenty of times before with SCSI etc. The other old school feature is mounting the drives with screws, a lot of other NAS and drive enclosures use a much quicker and simpler clip interface which just means when installing multiple drives it’s a lot quicker. All this aside once the drives are mounted they slide easily into each bay.
My main reason for purchasing this unit was that according to Amazon all the bays could be used in a RAID configuration, some other brands seem to limit RAID to two bays with the remaining drives used individually. I wanted to use the Yottamaster as a single large backup drive by spanning drives together to form a contiguous amount of space. I used some existing 4TB drives I had, in total linking all four together to form a 16TB drive (minus the usual overheads). My plan was to then use this large drive connected to a Synology NAS to backup photos, cloud sync data and movies I stored on that device.
There began my problems, I followed the manual to the letter, however put simply the manual is wrong. The enclosure by default has RAID disabled and all drives appear individually which is not what I wanted or paid a premium for. After multiple attempts to set the raid configuration I began to worry that power cycling my drives too frequently might result in damage so I contacted support and asked a question on Amazon. The manufacturer themselves responded which was nice (but not with a solution) however independently I found a site reviewing a different enclosure but one presumably using the same underlying hardware and with a better written manual. To that end this is the information you need to set the RAID configuration and what should have been written in the manual:
1. Power the enclosure off.
2. To clear the current RAID mode, push all the dip switches to the up position.
3.Press and hold the Set button. While holding the Set button, press and release the Power button to turn it on. As it turns on, you’ll hear one beep. Keep holding the Set button until you hear a second beep (wait for a proper beep–there are some electronic bits that aren’t the same). After the second beep, release the Set button.
4. Turn it off again using the power button.
5. Set the dip switches to the pattern matching your chosen configuration.
6. Press and hold the Set button.
7. Press the power button (while holding the Set button). Wait for second beep.
I’ll write my long-term evaluation after I have been running the enclosure for a while, hopefully trouble-free.