Convoy XL is based on a Silicon Image SiI5744 RAID controller. This is the main difference between Convoy XL and most HDD enclosures available on the market, including the standard Convoy from Patriot. When the box doesn’t have a built-in controller they are simple passive boxes, with RAID controlled by the RAID controller from the motherboard and each SATA port on the enclosure needing to be individually connected to individual SATA ports on the motherboard. For example, if the box has two ports, two SATA cables are required. With Convoy XL only one cable is required as it has this embedded RAID controller. Also because of that the SATA port on the motherboard doesn’t need to be RAID (but must be compatible with port multiplier technology – see next page).

click to enlarge
Figure 10: Inside Convoy XL.