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DAS and RAID enclosures ranked by price per bay

Multi-bay direct-attached storage (DAS) — RAID enclosures that plug into one computer over USB or Thunderbolt, ranked by price per bay. No network, no operating system to manage: just several drives showing up as one. For storage shared across the house, see NAS enclosures; for the difference, read NAS vs DAS.

9 products · prices from Amazon.co.uk via Keepa, refreshed daily ·

Bays Brand Diskless only 4★ and up Sort

Product	Bays	Price	£/bay	Drives	Rating
IO Crest Syba 8 Bay Tool Less Tray Hot Swappabe 2.5" 3.5" SATA Non Raid External USB 5Gbps	8	£257.21	£32.15	Diskless	★ 4.1 (510)
Syba SY-ENC50104 4 Bay 3.5” SATA III HDD NON-RAID Enclosure USB 5Gbps	4	£132.53	£33.13	Diskless	★ 4.1 (270)
ICY BOX IB-RD3621U3 External RAID System USB 5Gbps	2	£70.08	£35.04	Diskless	★ 4.0 (437)
IO Crest Syba 10000GB 5 Bay Tool Less Tray Hot Swappable 2.5" 3.5" SATA III RAID USB 5Gbps	5	£191.91	£38.38	Diskless	★ 4.0 (170)
Icybox External 4-Bay RAID Enclosure for 4 x 3.5 inch SATA l/ll/lll HDDs	4	£226.87	£56.72	Diskless	★ 4.1 (114)
Fantec QB-35US3R Hard Drive Enclosure for 4x 8.89 cm	4	£255.81	£63.95	Diskless	★ 4.4 (299)
QNAP 8-bay desktop SATA JBOD expansion unit	8	£1,145.63	£143.20	Diskless	★ 4.6 (14)
FANTEC QB X2US3R External Dual Hard Drive Caddy HDD Case Enclosure for 2x 3.5 in Expansion unitUSB 5Gbps	2	£100.61	£50.31	Diskless	★ 4.0 (531)
QNAP 8-bay desktop USB-C 3.1 Gen2 10Gbps JBOD Expansion unitUSB 10Gbps	8	£847.99	£106.00	Diskless	★ 4.2 (53)

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Choosing a DAS enclosure

Check three things: the interface (USB 5Gbps is fine for hard drives; SSD arrays want 10Gbps, 20Gbps or Thunderbolt), whether it does hardware RAID or presents each drive separately (JBOD), and whether it takes 3.5" drives — the cheapest storage per terabyte, see 3.5" drives. For storage the whole house can reach, a NAS is the better fit.

Frequently asked questions

What is a DAS enclosure?

Direct-attached storage is a box of drives that connects to one computer over USB or Thunderbolt. It is simpler and often faster than a NAS for a single machine, but it is not shared over the network.

NAS or DAS?

Choose a NAS if several devices need the storage or it must run on its own (backups, Plex). Choose a DAS for fast bulk storage on one desktop, such as a video-editing scratch array. See NAS vs DAS.

Is hardware RAID in a DAS a backup?

No. RAID 1 or 5 keeps working when one drive fails, but deleted or corrupted files are deleted and corrupted on every drive. Keep a separate backup.