The CalDigit S2VR Duo RAID Enclosure

Usability

The back panel of the S2VR Duo

The S2VR Duo is very simple to install and use, requiring almost no software setup at all. The RAID functions are easily implemented, and work just the way they that they should, right out of the box. It is very easy to set up the enclosure’s desired disk configuration. Your mode of choice can be selected with a simple adjustment on the back of the unit.

RAID 0 mode will stripe the drives for increased read/write performance of course, while RAID 1 mode will create redundancy on both drives for data safety and a bit of a read performance boost. Alternatively, the user could select JBOD mode - "Just a Bunch Of Drives" - so that the operating system will simply use both drives separately as one big volume, but where’s the sense in that ?

The S2VR Duo is rather limited since it only allows for two hard disks, but that doesn’t really represent too much of a problem given today’s high capacity

drives. Changing to a pair of hard drives with higher capacity is easy enough that almost anyone should be able to handle it. True, this may present an issue if the user’s goal is to achieve greater redundancy and security through higher RAID functions, but if this is the case a buyer should be in the market for enclosures with more available drive slots in the first place.

On a final note, we should mention that the S2VR Duo does not offer a variety of interface capabilities, like USB 2.0 or IEEE 1394 (Firewire). This isn’t really a problem per se, but if we had a wish list for external drives, multiple interfaces would be on it. It would certainly make the drive more mobile ; the S2VR requires a computer with an eSATA port to operate, which is hardly a standard feature on motherboards right now.

Test Setup