QNAP TL-R1200C-RP 12 Bay Rackmount JBOD Storage Enclosure with USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C Connectivity, Redundant PSU

If you've been trying to find a way to attach a bunch of disks via USB to turn a machine into a NAS, this is the best product in this category and I've tried so many. TERRAMASTER, Yottamaster, Sabrent, OWC, you name it -- this thing is the only product I've found that checks all the checkboxes and is reliable even in the 8-bay size.From a perspective of using this with Proxmox or TrueNAS or Unraid: This is just a generic DAS. It shows up as 2 USB 3.2 generic hubs when it's empty. Each time when you insert a disk, a ASMedia UAS device corresponding to that disk shows up with USB ID 174c:55aa. It works just fine without any Linux UAS quirks. It also supports hot plug / hot un-plug on a per drive basis without disturbing any of the other bays. I've tried disks as big as 24TB and had no issues. You don't really need to run any of the Windows/Ubuntu/Linux tools -- it shipped with the latest firmware and just works out of the box.It also passes through each drive's model/SN correctly, as well as SMART stats via just smartctl. I left the fans at the Auto setting on the rear switch and it was pretty quiet. Of course with 28TB spinning drives you really don't want it in your face, the hard drive seek noise dominates any hint of fan noise from the enclosure.The DAS powers on and off automatically after a power failure.I know all of this doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, over the course of 2 years I've bought 10 different cheaper DASes from other brands that claim to do these things. They all had deal breaking flaws. They either intermittently had data corruption (ZFS checksum errors), hangs, randomly lost the partition table for the drive until a power cycle, disks disappear off USB, or had an annoying power button per drive bay and no ability to automatically power everything on after power failure. It's refreshing to finally see something that works.

It seemed like a well made unit at a reasonably price, but I had a terrible experience with it.First, the good: The drive lights are a subdued green and not horrid blue strobes like by MediaSonic ProBoxes have. This may seem silly, but it's not a small matter. The QNAP's drive indicator lights are visible but not distracting. The cooling fans are functional but quiet. Again, my pair of MediaSonic ProBoxes have fans that make too much noise and resonate irritatingly inside their plastic enclosures. The QNAPs sound levels are perfectly acceptable.The bad: First and foremost, my unit has randomly disconnected all 8 drives three times in less than 24 hours. The first time it did so overnight while things were idle. I woke up to an error message. It's done a mass disconnect twice more while I was doing an rsync (data mirroring.) Having drives disconnect while doing prolonged read/writes is catastrophic. I am now tasked with removing the drives from this defective QNAP and migrating them to my old enclosures out of fears of data integrity.Also bad: The enclosure is made of entirely too much plastic. The drive sleds are plastic. The rails that attach to the drives are plastic. The doors that clock the drive sleds in place are plastic. The key that locks the doors closed is plastic and so are the pegs it turns. Everything feels fiddly and fragile. I was quite careful when I installed all 8 drives in the unit and it still felt like one wrong move could lead to a disaster. The cheap MediaSonic enclosures have far more metal in them, especially the bits that actually hold the drives in place. The significantly more expensive OWC enclosure I have is almost entirely made of metal and built like a tank.For the price I paid, I'd be willing to turn a blind eye to the very plastic build quality of the unit if it didn't keep disconnecting the drives. Random disconnects are a complete deal breaker for external storage.

QNAP did it with their TL-D800C. I just want the most obvious thing! I want some drive bays slapped on a fast USB plug. I don't want backup software, RAID, or anything. I use ZFS which is far better than RAID. And even software RAID is better now than hardware RAID. How hard can that be? Apparently nigh impossible! I tried Sabrient's and Yottamaster's, both total garbage. Sabrient's had no less than 10 soft power switches, which must be tickled after every reboot...I mean, nobody wants to run anything unattended, and everyone wants a lot of extra fiddling to power up, right? 🙄 Hello Captain Obvious! If I didn't want a drive powered on I wouldn't put the drive in! Obviously there was zero thought put into actual user experience.Yottamaster -- also a total failure. At least they didn't add a bunch of stupid power switches, but the drives kept getting checksum errors, retries, and dropping out. I have 8 drives, of various brands, various ages and sizes, all of which worked perfectly after I returned the Yottamster and put them in this QNAP unit. It was two units, so not a matter of a single defect. It was totally impossible to use and corrupted data. Apparently Yottamaster is terrible at testing. Oh, and the drive sleds often got stuck in the cheap chassis. Just throwing junk together hoping people won't return it.So thank you, QNAP! These actually work reliably. 10 Gb USB, screwless insertion, no soft power switches, decent price point, good (and quiet) fans, hot-swappable, no drivers. No extra junk to bypass like RAID logic or soft power switches. Works perfectly on FreeBSD 14 with ZFS.