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Testing I never expect too much change from one external enclosure to the next, but lets see what happens when we put that to the test. For testing I'll be using a 250GB Maxtor 8MB cache SATA hard drive, but first let's obtain a baseline. For this test I installed the same hard drive drive directly in the computer using the onboard SATA port. Hard Drive Baseline SATA Test
As you can see, it's not the fastest hard drive around, but it'll give us a good starting point. Now for the USB 2.0 test. Kingwin Elite USB 2.0 Tests The first set of results are comparing the Kingwin Elite to the baseline. Blue is baseline and red is the USB 2.0 test.
As expected, the USB 2.0 port gives us the normal 30 to 35 MB/s results. Next lets compare these results to Maxtor One Touch drive. 500GB Maxtor One Touch USB 2.0 Test Now to compare to the USB performance of the Maxtor 500GB "One Touch" external hard drive. Shown in red is the Maxtor One Touch test and in blue is the Elite Series.
The Kingwin Elite pushes ahead due to the slower hard drive included in the pre-configured, retail system. Considering that the price point of the 500GB Maxtor Hard Drive was $150 retail and the cost of a newer, faster 500GB SATA hard drive "plus" the cost of the Kingwin Elite shouldn't run more than $100 together, I'd say this "more money, less performance" result gives good reason to stay away from the retail systems unless you're in a bind. IE, hell's just frozen over and you need to backup your system??? Yeah, it's still not worth it... Elite Series eSATA Test Now the part that I've been waiting for. While, I received the enclosures over 2 weeks ago and started writing this review that same day, I wanted to be able to test out the eSATA port to see if it really did give close to the same results as installing the drive. Well, at first I tried picking up a generic eSATA to SATA cable and when it arrived the cable end had been folded over during packaging, crushed and it never functioned (RMA #1). So I decided to try for a Promise PCIe 1x RAID controller and that came in DOA as well (RMA #2). I had already stopped off at CompUSA, BestBuy, Computer Builders Warehouse as well as a half a dozen other local computer shops and they all said the same thing, no eSATA cables. While BestBuy did have a controller card, it was $70 for what online reviews were calling "junk". Finally, I did a quick internet search, and oddly enough, Kingwin themselves have an eSATA backplane, which I quickly snatched from Newegg. I finally got it up and running using eSATA and here are the test results.
As you can see while not "full" internal SATA speed, this is the closest I've ever gotten to internal drive speeds. Impressed? Very much so... Utilities There is one extra utility that comes with the package and it really has come in handy for me recently. The configurable, one-touch backup utility. I tested backing up both of my hard drives at once and while it doesn't compress the files, it does allow for "incremental" backups. Incremental backups means it does a complete backup of your files the first time and only adds or replaces files that are new or have changed since the last backup. This beats having to do a full backup every single day and considering the current cost of a 500GB hard drive plus the enclosure, having a pair of these in an office environment could be a great cost savings to expensive tape backup systems in the right environment. My only concern is that you can’t just insert the CD and have a autorun splash screen or even a setup.exe in the root directory. This is buried 4 directory levels down into the CD, but the manual did give the exact install path. Not a deal breaker, but it would have been nice not to have to go digging. Final Notes & Conclusion This is my first jump into eSATA and I've got to say that I like it. While I don't have any comparison to any other enclosures that offer this, it's definitely the way to go in the future. I've already had a couple people at my office order one each of these enclosures to replace the Maxtor One-Touch systems we've been using over the past 2 years. If the prices ever come down on ExpressCards, I'd like to test this enclosure connected to my laptop using one of the new PCI-Express laptop cards that offer eSATA connections. I did find one under $50, but it's going to have to wait. In the end, this seems like the perfect enclosure for those people that want a well built unit with all the bells and whistles. The build quality is top-quality and the performance you get by building your own external hard drive unit is worth the effort and will save you a few bucks in the process. While in no means is an external hard drive enclosure “innovative”, the eSATA has given new life to my concept of what they are good for and plan on using this as a daily go-between system from the home rendering box to work. From a basic Google Shopping search results have the drive being sold ranging from $34.99 to $38.81, but Newegg has it listed for $23.99 + $6.99 shipping for the black and for some unknown reason, $8.97 shipping for the blue or red. Pros:
Cons:
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