Version 4 of the Oyen Digital SSD MiniPro RAID is a significant upgrade from Version 3. Specifically, the following:1. The V4 is encased in a silicone bumper. The unit is quite rugged, and the chance that the added protection of a bumper will ever be needed is certain to be miniscule. However, for the user who experiences that one-in-a-million catastrophe where the bumper saves the day, it will at that moment be worth substantially more than the cost of a new unit. It never hurts to have added protection.2. The on/off switch on the V4 is recessed within the bumper. The one flaw in the design of the V3 was that the switch could easily be turned off while in use by accidental contact with anything. The addition of the bumper fixes that problem.3. The V4 adds the ability to daisy-chain additional USB devices. Let’s face it - one of the biggest advantages of the USB environment is the promise of being able to daisy chain other devices onto whatever you plug into your computer. Very few manufacturers enable you to benefit from that feature. Note that Oyen Digital cautions that you should use DC power (and not bus power) if plugging other devices into the V4. Take this warning seriously. On DC power, I could operate multiple daisy chained SSD’s, Blu-Ray/DVD/CD drives, and a mouse. On bus power, my computer would recognize other devices, but could not operate any except the mouse, and then only if nothing else was plugged in.4. The price of the V4 is $100 cheaper than the price of the V3. Until they put it on sale at clearance prices, forget the older model. The V4 has only added features and a cheaper price.I note that when I first got the unit, I plugged it into a (very expensive) Lenovo laptop’s Thunderbolt port. It worked fine on DC power, but would not power up on bus power. (Once on, I could switch from DC to bus power, and it would continue to work.) I tried several other laptop and desktop computers, and the Raid V4 powered up flawlessly in each when using bus power. Turns out that this was exclusively a Lenovo problem. Seems that they and some other manufacturers under-power certain of their ports on select computers. Although neither of the Thunderbolt ports on that laptop could power up this device, the same laptop also has a separate USB C port that can. (I’ve been told that I could also use a splitter cable to simultaneously draw power from 2 USB A ports, but I haven’t yet tried that solution.) Using that USB C port, the Raid V4 works flawlessly on bus power, so long as I don’t daisy chain other devices. (As above, if I use external power, I can daisy chain all I'd ever want.)I need a lot of storage (currently a minimum of 20tb) for work I perform on my laptop. Manufacturers long ago stopped providing room inside their laptops for additional drives. I attached the Raid V4 to my laptop with nano tape next to a couple of 8tb U32 Shadow SSD’s, giving my laptop 36tb of storage, which should keep me going for a few more years. I couldn’t be happier with this purchase.
