Benchmarking

Test setup

Test Setup
CPU	Intel Celeron 330 2.6 GHz
Mainboard	Shuttle SS58G2 Barebone PC Socket 775 SIS661FX
Memory	2 * 1024 Mb DDR OCZ
Other	Seagate 7200.10 500 Gb SATA

To test reading speed we used Hd tach version 3.04. A well known drive benchmarking tool.


~20Mb/s read speed, 17.7ms random access time

A very stable performance showing us just below 20 megabyte per second reading speed.

To test write speeds we copied a folder with a mixed content (about 1.3 Gb, 1000 files, larger and smaller) from an internal Seagate 7200.10 sata disk to the Spire casing. This took us 97.5 seconds. If you do the math we achieve an average writing speed of 13.3 Mb per second. Filling the 250 Gb disk with data would take about 5 to 5 and half hour.

Conclusion

PRO
Easy installation
Decent manual + tool provided
Good looking


CON
Can't be closed permanently
Two separate USB cables instead of a dual cable



Big thanks for Viviane from Spire who was so kind to send us this casing for a test drive, and for her enormous patience !