OWC

Name: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 / OWC ThunderBay 4 Spare Drive Tray
SKU: OWCMEQX2TRAY
Price: 14.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.76 (51 reviews)

Hard Drive Tray
for the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2
or the OWC ThunderBay

This is a spare hard drive tray for the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 or Thunderbay four-bay RAID enclosures. Having a spare tray allows you to easily swap drives without the need for extra tools.

Potential Uses:

Stand by "cold spare" available for hot swapping a drive
Rotating backups, keeping drive backups off-site
Separate storage for individual clients or large projects

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This product is compatible with... Learn how to find your Mac's model ID

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OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2

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Package Contents

Hard Drive Bracket.
Four hard drive mounting screws.
3 Year OWC Limited Warranty (tray only)

Customer Ratings

Write a Review 4.7 / 5 48 out of 51 (94%) reviewers would recommend this product

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Verified Buyer

Reviewer: CineWebb Location: Louisville, CO Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 5/5 Loved it, while it lasted July 21, 2018 Bought this back in 2010 for film and video editing. Configured it as a RAID-5, through a eSATA-to-Thunderbolt adapter, to my iMac. I kept it on essentially 24 hours a day during that time, never had a drive failure. About once a year I'd take time to blow the dust out to make sure airflow was always good. Worked flawlessly for about 7 years. In the 7th year, I started getting strange behavior. Beep codes randomly which couldn't be identified in the manual. Randomly wouldn't mount after booting some times, and in the final days it would take dozens of power-ups to get it up. As soon as I started having these problems, I checked my purchase and of course I was just a few months over my warranty. Ugh, oh well. I LOVED this little hardware RAID box. 7 years was a great run, but I'd be lying if said I wasn't a little disappointed in the longevity. The point of having a RAID box is for data reliability. I expected to lose a drive, but I never did. However, I never expected the hardware itself to fail.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 8.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 2.0 Enterprise Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: NorCalTechSupport Location: CA Age: 55-65 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 3/5 Mercury Elite Pro SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure April 23, 2018 My Mercury Elite Pro SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure is a great low end RAID box. It is missing the ability to alert you if one of the drives fail so it should be used in a home or an environment where someone can see the front end of the box everyday. It is fast and with 6TB HDDis kicks butt and takes names. It is my fault I did not research this product better and I bought two of them so I guess I better love them as most devices from OWC run 6 to 7 years before I pitch them to buy the newer stuff.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Response from MacSales.com, Call Center April 24, 2018 Thank you very much for the feedback on the Elite Pro QX2! With the hardware controller for the RAID, there's not a good way to get software involved and notify of a hard drive issue. We did just come out with the Elite Pro Quad, which now uses SoftRAID to control the RAID. This allows the ability for email alerts and monitoring for all drives on your system. You can find more information here: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-mercury-elite-pro-quad/raid-5

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Honest996 Location: Charlotte, NC Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 3-4 months

Rating: 5/5 Great Product! April 19, 2018 Easy to set up and configure and works like a charm. I put 4, 2tb, WD pro hard drives from a failed Drobo and only wish I had never bought the Drobo... It is a great value too. I highly recommend this approach if you need big hard drive storage.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: kallim123 Location: Arnessysla, Iceland Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 5/5 Fine product April 13, 2018 Now I bought the (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Wanted to do that for a long time.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Westfoto Location: New Orleans Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Excellent March 24, 2018 It has worked wonderfully out of the box

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 8.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Reviewer: DaClown Location: Abbotsford, BC, Canada Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month

Rating: 5/5 Perfect December 22, 2017 I needed to up my RAID game, and have wanted one of these for awhile. The build quality is solid, and the aesthetics are awesome. Looks great beside my iMac. I find it to be a quiet unit.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: ewhdesign Location: Bowling Green, KY Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Just what I have been Needing November 23, 2017 Setup was very easy and is working great. The fan is nice and quiet. Would recommend to anyone.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 20.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Rickspur Location: Nashville TN Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: less than a month

Rating: 5/5 Excellent enclosure works as advertised October 1, 2017 I bought this to harvest my hard drives from my old MacPro. I installed the hard drives and connected to my new IMac. All the drives were recognized, all data was intact, and the OS recognized the two hard drives that were configured as a mirrored RAID correctly.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Terooster Location: Montréal, Canada Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month

Rating: 5/5 Super nice product September 11, 2017 I'm really happy of my OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2. Easy drive instalation and easy RAID setup. This enclosure is neat and not oversized and also, not too loud.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: peterht Location: Ft Lauderdale, FL Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month

Rating: 5/5 Upadate To Previous Review May 1, 2017 I had some difficulty with the first device shipped, could be my fault. Anyway, had to get a replacement in a hurry and OWC really came thru.

I just used the RAID for two weeks sold for broadcast HD video editing and it performed flawlessly. And the speed it tremendous.

Not only do I recommend the RAID I always depend on OWC for great customer support - for over 10 years now.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 4.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Top 50 Contributor

Reviewer: MountainMan Location: Woodland Park, CO Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Qx2 review, Chapter 2 February 11, 2017 Lest anyone have doubts about OWC customer service, consider my experience with the Qx2. I had major problems with my unit, covered thoroughly in an earlier review. After two years of service, it stopped working reliably, disconnecting often and ultimately corrupting my drives (even though I was running in independent mode). No amount of tech support at OWC (and we spent many hours trying) was able to diagnose or identify the problem, so I essentially gave up on the device, considering it nothing more than a large paperweight.

Robert J., technical customer service rep at OWC, noticed my negative review and took it upon himself to contact me. After a few back-and-forth emails discussing my experiences, Robert determined that it was still under warranty and arranged to have it returned to OWC (even providing a prepaid shipping label).

OWC tested and confirmed the random disconnect problem, apparently a malfunction within the Qx2's circuitry. Within a few days, Robert and OWC returned to me--again, at no cost--my Qx2 with new innards. So far, it is working flawlessly, so I assume I was simply unlucky with the original unit.

As other reviewers have mentioned, don't trust any single device with irreplaceable files. I will continue to monitor the performance of my "new" Qx2, and trust that my problems are things of the past. Four stars for the Qx2 itself, as I'm still a bit gun shy, but six stars for Robert and OWC customer service.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Adamski

Rating: 3/5 Affordable but LOUD January 30, 2017 Affordable but LOUD. Also, don't like that a key is required.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 12.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: peterl7 Location: Austarlia Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Excellent Raid solution January 17, 2017 quality unit ++++++

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: peterl7 Age: 45-54

Rating: 5/5 A great unit!!! January 17, 2017 Excellent RAID solution

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) 8.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 2.0 Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Reviewer: adamwc Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 5/5 Be Mindful, RAIDs are not failsafe January 4, 2017 I agree with other reviewers here that the Qx2 system is fantastic. It's quiet, the performance is excellent in RAID 5 and RAID 0 configurations (what I use) and probably in others, too.

But I want to point something out based on a recent experience. I had a Qx2 with enterprise drives in RAID 5 mode fail on me EIGHT years after my initial purchase. That's a good long life for any hard drive, I'm not complaining. However, at that point, the hard drive I would use to replace my failed drive has different firmware installed. And according to DriveSavers, attempting to rebuild a RAID 5 with drives that have different firmware can actually corrupt the entire RAID, resulting in total data loss. The data recovery estimate from DriveSavers (which is a partner with OWC and offers purchasers a 20% discount) ranges from a bit over a thousand dollars to $7000.

The Qx2 products are awesome, but they're not failsafe. If you're using them to back up critical documents, back those documents up on other drives and in the cloud and on BluRays, too. And seriously consider buying a couple of extra drives (I should have done this in the first place) that exactly match what OWC is installing in your system, so you'll be in an ideal position to recover data in the event of a drive failure.

This is a fantastic product, but nothing made by man is made to last forever. Cover thy assets.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 24.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Enterprise Class Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: TomDFrog Location: Central Maryland Age: 35-44 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: less than a month

Rating: 4/5 A Great RAID box November 30, 2016 I have begun replacing my Mercury Rack Pros with these. They are great. Their innards are the same as the MRP, so the drives swapped right in. And, they run quieter. Hopefully, they are more reliable over the long haul.

Their one flaw compared to the MRP is their reliance on mounting the drives into carriers to be inserted.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Reviewer: Nicholas Location: Derby, United Kingdom of Great Britain (UK) Age: 35-44 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Perfect Solution for MASSIVE iTunes Library November 11, 2016 Really love the build quality on this unit. Nice an heavy and extreamly well built.

Fan in the unit works well but is not at all noisy, four happy blinking lights all operting in Raid 5 and quick as lightning.

This unit replaces an aging Lacie d2 Quadra and now provides 24TB of storage for my iTunes folder which is perfect for my needs (8+8+8+8 in Raid 5)

Unit is very fat connected over Firewire 800 to my 2010 Mac Mini server and I am pleased as punch.

I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Macinations Location: Colorado Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Got just what I wanted November 7, 2016 What I wanted was a USB3 4 bay disk enclosure that would run large drives as a JBOD peripheral. And that is what I got. I really like the build quality and appearance of this unit as well as the different kinds of ports. The fan is quiet and disks are easy to install and change but this does require use of a screw driver.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: DoctorOmaha Location: Omaha, NE Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 5/5 Works flawlessly October 14, 2016 I bought case without drives. Easy to install, Works well, easy to set up. I've had it for about a month, no issues

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: pennywise Location: Hollywood, CA Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 3-4 months

Rating: 5/5 Interchangable.... September 12, 2016 I love this enclosure. I like the fact that I can have 4 independent drives. I HIGHLY recommend you DO NOT use this as a RAID. I had done this before, but my bridge connector sizzled and toasted all my drives in this enclosure. I'm back though, and pleased as punch.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: ecallero Location: Los Angeles Age: 25-34 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months

Rating: 4/5 Great RAID September 1, 2016 My only complaint is that the USB 3.0 cables supplied with the device are pretty much useless because they are so short. I would gladly trade the included FW and eSATA cables for a longer one.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 12.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID. Customer Videos:

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Anonymous Location: New York, NY Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 5/5 Excellent Unit, Excellent Service July 24, 2016 I purchased two Mercury Elite Pro units to accommodate back ups and day-to-day work with photos and video. The units have delivered reliable service with one glitch--one drive on one unit failed recently. The warranty in force, I returned the failing drive and had a replacement in hand in short order. The new drive rebuilt as expected from the RAID array. I am very happy with this device. When I need more storage, I will definitely be looking at purchasing another these units.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 8.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID.

Verified Buyer Top 100 Contributor

Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Middle of nowhere Age: 55-65 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: 3-4 months

Rating: 4/5 Gets all those boxes off your desk April 16, 2016 I use the T-bolt version of this device for my active files. It comes with SoftRAID that allows almost complete customization. Recommended if you use multiple work disks. (Using SSDs in RAID 0 yields data access rates almost the same as internal SSD.)

This in contrast is cheaper, slower with USB-3 and best as I can tell gives less flexibility in RAID choices. (You get one and that's it for the whole device.) Would be nice if SoftRAID would work on these USB boxes.

Still they are an excellent value, and I'm using them it as a JBOD device and have multiple backup storage in it (including a complete bootable system). I also have my Time Machine on a huge 6TB drive. I once would have said I'd never fill up such a large drive, but I've been proven wrong many times.

Highly recommended for those needing various storage arrangements and also who can live with a single RAID configuration and don't need highest thru put possible.

(1 star off for RAID limitability.)

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure.

Verified Buyer

Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Baltimore Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 5/5 It just works April 11, 2016 it's my working horse for the last 4 years.

This review is from (*) OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 2.0 4-Bay SATA Desktop RAID Enclosure.

Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Dallas, Texas Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months

Rating: 4/5 Improved design, have had both series March 26, 2016 I handle high end creative as a hands-on CD - video / FX, HTML5 animation, image editing and compositing, product design, site authoring, print, packaging, displays, marketing support, etc. — Major projects for leading brands. I stress my hardware to the max. I use a QX2 that is two years old for my main live storage and a second QX2 (a couple of months old, with an improved internal design) for my main backup. The internals of my original enclosure failed after three years (out of warranty) and I replaced it with an identical unit. The drives and content were immediately recognized and everything fired right up. The newer version of the enclosure (which I've had for a couple of months) features an improved internal design and I'm hoping it will far outlast the warranty. A month ago one of the original four drives began to vibrate but the older enclosure did not specify which drive was bad. It simply indicated that there was a problem. After yanking the drives and running Drive Genius on the individual drives, I was not able to tell which one was bad. I'm going to put two of the drives in a spare Mercury Elite Dual and mirror them. If one craps out, I can then know what to use for my next set of wind chimes. Meanwhile, I tried to buy a couple of matching drives for the older enclosure, but the manufacturer had changed hands and dropped that model. The result was that I had to buy a new set of four drives for the older enclosure. Lesson learned, when I bought new drives I bought the same model of Toshibas that were in the new RAID, along with a couple of spares. Make sure you but an extra drive or two in case one drive dies. All four drives must be the same model or you will be stuck with either a JBOD or you'd have to buy a new set of four. As for my very first QX2 - which tanked a couple of years ago, I never actually threw it out. The thing is so solidly built that I might need it to prop up my car for the next oil change.

I would recommend this item to a friend! This review is from 8.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4 Bay eSATA,FireWire 800+USB 3.0 Hardware Desktop RAID.

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OWC Drive Tray for OWC Mercury Elite Qx2 / ThunderBay Models Mfr P/N: MEQX2TRAY OWC SKU: OWCMEQX2TRAY Easily swap drives without the need for extra tools. 3 Year OWC Limited Warranty

Reviews (51)

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OWC

Hard Drive Trayfor the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2or the OWC ThunderBay

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Package Contents

Customer Ratings

Hard Drive Tray
for the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2
or the OWC ThunderBay