USB 3.0 RAID: Raidon SafeTANK

Readers have been asking when someone will release a USB 3.0 RAID enclosure. Raidon has a new product, the SafeTANK GR3660-B3 SSD/HDD RAID. With the limited bandwidth of USB 3.0 compared to Thunderbolt 2.0, a dual bay version makes perfect sense. We tested it with both SSDs and HDDs.

GRAPH LEGEND
SSD 2TB R0 = Dual Samsung 1TB 840 EVO 6Gbps SSDs in RAID 0 set (striped)
SSD 1TB R1 = Dual Samsung 1TB 840 EVO 6Gbps SSDs in RAID 1 set (mirrored)
SSHD 4TB R0 = Dual Seagate 2TB Desktop SSHDs (STCL2000400) in RAID 0 set
HDD 2TB R0 = Dual Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDDs (ST1000DM003) in RAID 0 set
HDD 1TB R1 = Dual Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDDs (ST1000DM003) in RAID 1 set
The SafeTANK GR3660-B3 was connected to a USB 3.0 port on the 'late 2013' MacBook Pro Retina running OS X 10.9.5.

RED graph bar means the fastest overall in Megabytes per Second.

LARGE SEQUENTIAL TRANSFER TEST
We used AJA System Test to test file level sequential transfer speed using a 16GB test document.

Again, RED graph bar means the fastest overall in Megabytes per Second.

INSIGHTS
The SafeTANK GR3660-B3 was easy to set up with its "RAID-in-the-box" approach. You can select either RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD using a switch in the back. Then power up the drive pair and format the volume with Disk Utility.

The SafeTANK comes with mounting holes for both 2.5" and 3.5" form factor drives, so you don't need special trays to use 2.5" HDDs or SSDs. You know by now that BareFeats digs SSDs. Though we didn't expect the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSDs to achieve their 1000MB/s potential as a striped pair, in RAID 1 mode, they transfer large sequential data sets at twice the speed of either model of 7200rpm HDD. And they blow away HDDs transferring small random data sets in both RAID 0 and RAID 1 mode.

And at $135 USD, it is affordable.

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