The LINDY USB 3.0 & eSATA to 5 SATA Port Multiplier & RAID Adapter allows you to connect five SATA hard drives with a single eSATA or USB cable. The drives can then be configured in a variety of ways depending on the required RAID setting to appear individually or in a number of RAID array configurations With this port multiplier, you can also connect up to five optical drives, such as DVD-RW or Blu-Ray drives, simultaneous copy & write data via the eSATA connection. RAID 1, 3, 5, 1+0 configurations can be set via dip switches or GUI with drive status monitored by attaching LEDs to the on-board LED signal pin headers or via the bundled monitoring software. RAID errors or drive failure alerts can be emailed to an SMTP account or sounded via the on board buzzer. The Port Multiplier can be mounted in a standard multi-bay enclosure or installed on a PCI slot L-plate with the supplied metal screws, allowing you to adapt a desktop PC case for use as an external hard drive storage enclosure Note: Changing the RAID mode leads to a reconfiguration of the disk array and will erase all data on the hard drives!