The Packaging

Our iStorage Pro iT8SAE arrived double boxed and the entire package system is designed to take advantage of this. The weight for shipping is right around 50 pounds so plan on going ground to save on shipping costs.

Once inside both boxes we found a box in the middle with all of the documentation and SF-8088 data cable. The four boxes on the outside are made to hold your 3.5 inch form factor hard drives if you purchased a system with drives.

With the accessory box removed we can see that the main unit is packaged very well with a lot of distance between the edge of the main unit and the side of the box. This crush zone is usually where we see large packages damaged in shipping.

The iT8SAE comes with everything needed to get started except for the computer and SAS controller. Unfortunately the cable they sent with the unit was defective but we will get into that headache later in the article. On the inside we found nine packs of screws so you will have four extra screws to secure the drives if you happen to lose a set. The documentation was written in a clear manner but has less information than what we found on Areca's website for the ARC-8020 controller. Still, putting the system together is not rocket science and everyone should be able to get by without knowing every detail and specification for the expander built into the iT8SAE.