S Matt

Actually, I take it back - I could likely just route the SATA->ESATA cable through an unused card port. It looks like my MediaSonic unit lacks an eSATA port, but I'd be willing to buy a new 8-unit if it's a superior connection that would actually be as reliable as my internal drives.

I've been running the MediaSonic USB 3.1 4 Bay 3.5' SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps USB Type C (HF7-SU31C) enclosure for months with (3) 2-3TB WD Reds. I'm using a standard USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 connection and it's working reliably for the most part. I have 11 drives in my DrivePool, 8 of them are in my main server and 3 additional drives (working drives that I just upgraded for more storage in the main PC) are in the MediaSonic. For the most part, I haven't had any trouble... but a few times the connection was lost until I power-cycled the MediaSonic - At least in a couple of those cases, I believe it was due to the main PC power cycling and not re-connecting properly. My MediaSonic doesn't use RAID, JBOD, etc. - it's just the base model. I use a tiny 8-bay U-NAS NSC-810A (http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17640) and my m.atx motherboard lacks an ESATA port, so I can either continue doing what I'm doing with USB3.1 or I could drill through the case and route a SATA->ESATA cable to the MediaSonic. Just curious if anyone still feels like such an approach would be worthwhile? For those that have switched from USB3.1 to ESATA, has it truly cleared up all connection issues? If it has, then I'd like to switch too. http://www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1515799123 I appreciate your input, thanks!