I was thinking on buying a 2-4 bay HDD powered enclosure as a NAS for my mini pc, since I already have that, and buying or building a full-fledged diy NAS seems a bit expensive.
I want to hear some opinions from you guys, since it seems using this method is a mixed area from the selfhosted pros. I would be hoping that by using a powered enclosure, that would alleviate or solve the USB port overcharging issue, which have appeared in my mini pc when trying out an external HDD with a normal sata to usb converter.
Did you have any experiences with a setup like this one?
I used USB enclosures for my RAIDs for over 20 years. The turning point has been usb3 and then usb-c even better, but I found really no difference as in the bottleneck where the mechanical drives.
Moved to an all internal sata setup a few months back because I upgraded the space and moved to a desktop form factor.
Can still recommend the USB approach tough.
BUY A QUALITY EBCLOSURE.
I always used Linux software raid, but purchased a 4 slots USB raid/jbod enclosure to keep the number of used USB ports down.
I never ever had issues with the setup, but I purchased a known-brand enclosure, one with also e-SATA, which unfortunately was/is more a fad than even been really used.
