Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Facebook
Eagle Tech I-Series Dual SATA HDD USB Enclosure Review
Storage/Other by SidneyWong @ 2008-04-01
Eagle Tech I-Series dual hard-drive enclosure in JBOD setup looks appealing with two face plates and a rear fan for the tough job.
Performance & Conclusion
Performance:
I found the noise level of the exhaust fan to be very acceptable at a mere 2.5dBA above ambient of about 37.8 dBA at about 6 inches away. However, I doubt its effect on cooling the hard drives which are partitioned by the PCB.
Like any external HD enclosure with USB 2.0 connectivity, the difference in speed on both read and write is marginal from one another.
Using a 750GB from Seagate, I get an average read speed of 35.6MB/s which is not bad at all. Having two HDDs capacity will only mean I could add another drive when my "collections" begin to get out of hands.
Dual HDDs:
I installed a Seagate 750GB and a Western Digital 250GB. Both HDDs contain Windows XP O/S with different partition settings. Although the enclosure recognizes the disks, the different partitions put the second drive in "unallocated" size.
Of course, this is no fault to the I-Series. I would have to reformat the drive which I am not about to do but to show you the result of JBOD.
Regarding "Raid" setup, it is similar to our last dual HDDs enclosure review. Since "Raid" does not really add performance in USB connectivity, I am not going to repeat the process knowing the result would be the same.
A note of caution - the hard drives temperature is not to my liking at all from the inefficient exhaust cooling fan. Or, should I say no active cooling.
Conclusion:
I have had the opportunity to test a few HD enclosures from Eagle Tech in the last 12 months. Before this I-Series, I like very much the M-Series single drive enclosure while others were not so impressive. I look for ease of installation and the M and I Series are the best from Eagle Tech.
No, the exhaust fan doesn't do much the way it is placed. Thankfully, the noise level is low enough that it won't bother anyone. I would only turn the enclosure on when I need access; otherwise I keep it turn off. Sliding the drives into the connection slot is easy. The minor issue with the four bottom cover mounting screws can be overlooked. At around $39, or about $10 over a single drive enclosure plus the free backup software, I'd consider it a pretty nice deal.
+ Ease of installation
+ Additional face-plate
+ Free backup software
+ Reasonable price point
- Lacks effective cooling
I found the noise level of the exhaust fan to be very acceptable at a mere 2.5dBA above ambient of about 37.8 dBA at about 6 inches away. However, I doubt its effect on cooling the hard drives which are partitioned by the PCB.
Like any external HD enclosure with USB 2.0 connectivity, the difference in speed on both read and write is marginal from one another.
Using a 750GB from Seagate, I get an average read speed of 35.6MB/s which is not bad at all. Having two HDDs capacity will only mean I could add another drive when my "collections" begin to get out of hands.
Dual HDDs:
I installed a Seagate 750GB and a Western Digital 250GB. Both HDDs contain Windows XP O/S with different partition settings. Although the enclosure recognizes the disks, the different partitions put the second drive in "unallocated" size.
Of course, this is no fault to the I-Series. I would have to reformat the drive which I am not about to do but to show you the result of JBOD.
Regarding "Raid" setup, it is similar to our last dual HDDs enclosure review. Since "Raid" does not really add performance in USB connectivity, I am not going to repeat the process knowing the result would be the same.
A note of caution - the hard drives temperature is not to my liking at all from the inefficient exhaust cooling fan. Or, should I say no active cooling.
Conclusion:
I have had the opportunity to test a few HD enclosures from Eagle Tech in the last 12 months. Before this I-Series, I like very much the M-Series single drive enclosure while others were not so impressive. I look for ease of installation and the M and I Series are the best from Eagle Tech.
No, the exhaust fan doesn't do much the way it is placed. Thankfully, the noise level is low enough that it won't bother anyone. I would only turn the enclosure on when I need access; otherwise I keep it turn off. Sliding the drives into the connection slot is easy. The minor issue with the four bottom cover mounting screws can be overlooked. At around $39, or about $10 over a single drive enclosure plus the free backup software, I'd consider it a pretty nice deal.
+ Ease of installation
+ Additional face-plate
+ Free backup software
+ Reasonable price point
- Lacks effective cooling
Copyright © 2001-2011 Madshrimps, All rights reserved.
Graphic Design by Dennis Kestelle, Programming by Maarten Menten,
Overall Site design by John Meys
All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us.
