Hey everyone, I’m looking for recommendations for an external USB HDD enclosure that supports SMART monitoring. I already have a 3-2-1 backup system, and I got 2 cold hard drives. My current issue is the drive can die anytime without me knowing, and I do not want to know they all die only by the time I plug them in. I want to be able to monitor disk health so I can react quickly if something goes wrong.
My requirements:
- Supports SMART monitoring, so that I can check drive health
- Support 10TB 3.5" HDDs (preferably 16TB)
- Allow HDDs showing up individually in my Ubuntu laptop
- 2 bays (preferably 4 bays)
- (preferably) auto-sleep / good power management as electricity not cheap here
- (preferably) USB-C support, the enclosure will be mainly plugged into my laptop with USB-A and USB-C ports, but I seldomly would want to plug into my second laptop which only got USB-C ports
I know a NAS will easily fulfill my requirements here, but I am trying to save some money and I don't need features like 24/7 availability or RAID.
If you’ve got experience with a good enclosure that fits these needs, I’d love to hear your recommendations! If there exist other better solutions, let me know! Thanks in advance and have a good day!