An external raid enclosure is a shell that can let you insert an other hard drive of Your PC or laptop for use externally. How to used it depends on you after installation. as the Enclosure kits provide protection to a bare hard drive,so it can work all the time.

there are two hard drive size of enclosures,for a Laptop size,2 and 1/2 inches,and for a desktops size:3 1/2 inches.for Connections? PATA and EIDE are too old, the SATA have faster transfer rates. so there some kinds of sata external enclosures include external raid enclosure

• 1, Massive Storage Enclosure

This kinds of  external enclosures accommodate huge numbers of  hard drives, Can be use  for massive storage capacity.  High-performance RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 0  – perfect for you if you have a  HD video editing workstation.

• 2,SATA Port Multiplier Enclosure – Software RAID and  Hardware RAID

This kinds of  external raid enclosure perfect for built in SATA Port Multipliers which support Software RAID or Hardware RAID control and provide a high performance connections between one port or multiple hard drives.  Software RAID enclosure can be used as individual drives (JBOD) or as RAID 1, RAID 5 or  RAID 0 arrays.  Hardware RAID enclosure have built in RAID controllers,so it taking the load off of the computer CPU.

• 3, Enclosure of Direct Connect

Direct connect enclosure have a independent connection for eachof the hard drive (ie 3-bay enclosures connect to the computer using 3 cables).

• 4, Multilane Enclosure

This kinds of enclosure perfect for the SATA Multilane connector, that allows the connections for 4 SATA hard drives with a single cable.

• 5,SATA RAID Array

External SATA enclosure complete with high performance  hard drives.  it can used in 10TB of storage tested and works very well

• 6,Enclosure for One or Two Drive Setup

This kinds of External enclosure accommodate single SATA drives or two SATA hard drives (for RAID use)

• 7,Hot-Swap and  Removable  Kits

Hard Drive kits can be install in desktop 5.25″ bay slot and that allow for easy insertion and removal of  hard drive.