5-8 Bay USB 3.0/3.1 Enclosure With TVS-873

[Pirivan]

First let me say thank you in advance for any feedback, it is much appreciated.

I purchased a QNAP TVS-873 that will arrive next week. I would like to back it up using 2 external USB 3.0/3.1 enclosure that each support 5-8 drive bays (the enclosures will be then taken offsite as a cold backup). Ideally the external drives in the enclosures would be NTFS formatted and seen as individual disks for me to backup to (NOT RAID). Are there any multi-bay external enclosures that the QNAP TVS-873 supports and will allow me to backup/sync data to?

Certainly I could connect a USB 3.0 enclosure to a Windows PC and backup to it from the QNAP over the network but then I am limited to 1Gbps instead of the 5/10Gbps provided by USB 3.0/3.1 respectively.

I do currently have some 5 bay eSATA enclosures but they require a special PCI card that support port multiplier. This works fine in my current Windows Server but my assumption is that the QNAP 873 won't let me install/support the PCI-E x1 SIL 3132 eSATA card that my enclosures connect to. It just seems unlikely that it would have drivers to support that PCI-E card.

[Don]

QNAP only officially supports their own external expansion units but they are expensive. Try searching the forum to see if others have gotten other models to work. I've seen posts about 2 - 3 bay models but nothing as big as a 5 - 8 bay unit.

[Spider99]

have a look at Orico usb enclosures - i have one with 5 drives - each is seen as a single drive - use NTFS - get about 130 MB/s to each drive

used as a backup target via backup station from my 853a

[eldor]

NTFS Format will be a Problem. Qnap uses Linux, therefore it will be most likely formated as ext4

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[Don]

NTFS Format will be a Problem. Qnap uses Linux, therefore it will be most likely formated as ext4

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EXT4 is used for internal drives. External drives can be FAT, FAT32, HPFS+, NTFS, or exFAT (with license purchase).

[eldor]

Ahh good to know Thanks!

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[Pirivan]

have a look at Orico usb enclosures - i have one with 5 drives - each is seen as a single drive - use NTFS - get about 130 MB/s to each drive

used as a backup target via backup station from my 853a

Ah ha fantastic, that is very likely to work with my TVS-873 then. Is the model you have the "Orico 9558U3-V1-US-SV" aka this one?
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Aluminum-3 ... rico+5+bay

Some of the Amazon and Newegg reviewers mentioning issues with the drives disconnecting randomly, performance issues and data corruption with the Orico 5 bay units, have you had any of those issues or has it mostly been smooth sailing? I see some of those same complaints on the '9558U3 BLACK' edition. Thanks for your feedback, it is highly appreciated.

@Don

Thank you for the feedback, highly appreciated. Totally understand that they officially support their expansion units (I checked that first and wasn't thrilled with the price). I also did a forum search before posting and like you I didn't see anyone mentioning 5-8 bay units unfortunately (mostly 1 bay units). Thanks for the heads up on external NTFS support, I was almost positive that it was supported.

[Spider99]

yes thats the one

never had any issues with it

it will go to sleep very quickly if no drive is accessed

but also boots up very quickly when they are

no performance issues or data corruption - more than likely poor quality usb3 ports on cheap motherboards or hubs or drivers etc

[raider69]

Hey there,
Yes technically NTFS is supported on USB3 ports, only catch is that it is notoriously unstable. At least it was when I thoroughly tested back in 2015. Cf. also numerous other threads about it. Wanted NTFS formatted USB3 HDs for One TouchBackup, had to retreat to Ext4. This works fine since then.

I was actually expecting warnings about USB 3 and NTFS, but none came - Don, does that mean that Qnap finally have done their homework and it works reliably Now? That would be amazing...

[Don]

As far as I know it is stable. NTFS is slower than EXT formatted drives.

[Spider99]

NTFS is stable via Qnap to an external enclosure - have used it for a long time with no issues

[raider69]

This is great news! Will retry. Thanks.

--Update: Can confirm, NTFS works stable with my WD 2,5'' USB 3 drives on front usb; via OTC as well as with RSync. I even got the impression it performs better than Ext4, but that's not been scientifically tested.