| Mapower MAP-TB32 Dual SATA RAID Enclosure
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The Enclosure:
The MAP-TB32 dual SATA RAID enclosure is basically an extruded aluminum tube with a plastic front end cap and a steel hard drive tray that slides in from the back. The back of the enclosure is also plastic, but is secured to the steel tray so it is very solid. The aluminum body is silver with a matte finish that helps keep fingerprints to a minimum.
 
The front panel has a shiny silver finish with a gray ring surrounding it. There are small ventilation intake holes between the gray ring and the silver front panel. The front panel is visually clean and elegant. There is a power icon and two disk symbols on the front. All three are back lit with blue and red LEDs. These LEDs can be off, steady, or flashing in blue, red, or both (purple) to provide the user with status information. Unfortunately the information it is trying to convey is not readily apparent and you will need to consult the manual for clarification.
The images below show the enclosures front panel and a couple of the LED combinations.
 
The aluminum body and steel drive tray can be seen in the images below.
  
The tray provides approximately 3/4" of space between the top hard drive and the bottom drive. This allows the 40mm fan on the back of the chassis to provide plenty of airflow to the enclosure and hard disk drives for cooling. The images below show the drive tray, controller, and cooling fan. While in operation, the TB32CS is a bit noisier than some enclosures, but it's not excessively so. The inclusion of two hard drives in the case makes a cooling fan necessary. I was unable to measure the hard drive temperatures, because the controller apparently doesn't pass the information from the hard drive to the computer, but I never felt the case get more than warm to the touch.
 
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