I just tested a few different bare drive solutions. One was external with a dual USB/eSata interface and the other was a trayless docking bay that fits into a standard 5 1/4" bay.

http://invitro.umassmed.edu/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=hard_drive_benchmarks

A dual USB/eSATA device isn't as fast as an eSATA device just because an extra layer of electronics in the USB/eSATA device.

why not just use something like this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998032&Tpk...

and you actually get to use a SATA interface.

Insomnia =First Post!

I was just looking at buying one of these.....off to read the mini-review.

Back.

Hhmmmm, about what I expected. On second thought, it doesn't seem like all that.

I'll stick with this for my test bench.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

"When you really get down to it, there isn't much to them, nor are there many differences between the various flavors on the market."

And yet we have USB vs eSATA (in two speed grades) vs Firewire (also in two grades). We have varying chipsets in the enclosures that have shown significant performance differences in the past (eg Oxford vs some others). I'd love to see a comparison of external enclosures supporting multiple interface standards (which tend to use the better chipsets, but cost more) vs the rest (which tend to use the cheaper chipsets). I'm not sure you can just write off the whole category as uninteresting and unworthy of more attention -- especially when HD speeds (and SSD on the horizon) are now getting into the speed territory where those differences become significant.

I think I suggested something like this back in my "hey check this out" thread in the Storage forum.

Funny comment about it being eXtreme. hehe

Anyhow, I gather you guys read the forum topic we had at least a few weeks ago (I believe in JBI's or someone's thread about an external drive enclosure) about whether or not external USB 2.0 really constrained drive performance (maybe not but you did go out of your way to point this out, which leads me to believe you did and wanted to clarify for us).

I have to concede that I was completely incorrect based on this article. I asked someone to prove me incorrect (since I had no evidence of my conjecture aside from average sustained read/write speeds, but not burst) and if your numbers are accurate, my recommendation that USB 2.0 was close enough to internal SATA performance was irresponsible. The margins are simply too vast to ignore the difference between something like eSATA or SATA vs USB 2.0.

Thanks for enlightening with data.

I'd probably buy one tomorrow, if it had eSATA

It seems to me that a nice companion product for something like this would be a padded and ESD-protective storage case for multiple bare hard drives. Bare drives could be the removable media of the future; with a cost/GB which is within a factor of 3 of DVD-R media (and cheaper than Blu-Ray media), I think a lot of people may opt to use bare hard drives for backup and archival storage.

Durability would still be a concern, of course... drop it once and you potentially lose hundreds of gigabytes of data. But the speed and convenience may outweigh that for many users.

I'm a bit late to the party, but it seems just exactly what everyone is asking for IS available ... If you can stand the price! ($173.00)
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&produ...

It does however work on both SATA and PATA drives, has USB 2.0, Firewire A and B, and eSAT conectors.

I'd get one in a second, but the price!
Geeze!

Also note the maker is LOGITEC not LOGITECH.
If you want something to burn some time, try to find the company on the web.

Next related item in their lineup:

GoatSE 'docking' station!

One potential downside I see to the design of the BlacX SE is the lack of cooling. A plastic body and no fans makes for poor heat dissipation. A quick test of temperatures may be in order.

What a dumb name for the thing. Is it pronounced "black X" or "blacks" or "blacksh" or what?

Just another minor variation of appearance for what is essentially a very simple product. The lifter button is nice, but that's a huge footprint for something that only needs a 2 inch connector on one side and a power/data circuit board for the USB. And you still probably can't just reach over and slap the button to pull it out, but have to lean over to hold the base with one hand while detaching the drive with the other.

Does it require DC power input when a 2.5" drive is being used? (Not that there'd be much point to not having the power plugged in since it just sits there anyway.)

I personally prefer matte black plastic. I don't want the bezels of my computer parts reflecting lights or otherwise distracting me. Monitors with glossy bezels get crossed off my potential buy list immediately. A little more color wouldn't be too bad on this, if they could get rid of the orange X (which appears to be a fire or an explosion, not something you want associated with your hard drive anyway).

It appears the back of the drive is half-exposed, and the shroud would have a lot of space between it and the drive, so I expect that would be enough to keep it cool. Wouldn't expect to have it on all the time anyhow. Leaving the drive exposed like that seems odd though.

I have deja vu all of a sudden, feeling like there was already a TR review of a product much like this.

haha, I can actually see the blue glare in several of the pictures

Brando has a few products like this that seem to be a bit better made.

Hey, cool, I was looking at this the other day. I would have bought one but the lack of either Firewire or eSATA was a deal breaker. Excellent idea by Thermaltake but shoddy connectivity! Thanks for the review.

You can get similar interfaces ((S)ATA to USB2) off Ebay for around €10 ($14). Of course they do not come with such rack, but at less than half the price, that was OK with me.

for those wondering why it doesn't have eSata it's probably because 'logitec' hasn't made one yet:
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&produ...

personally i prefer the simpler one i posted before

i hate thermaltake

they seem to take some pretty nice products:
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&produ...

then get drunk and try to make something better
see their cases, cooling solutions, power supplies, etc

i mean even their fans make me wanna vomit
it's a fan. how in the world do you screw up a fan?