INSTALLATION

Hard drive installation is simple.  Remove the center piece and slide the SATA drive into the socket. 

     Using the included screws, firmly mount the drive in place.  This center piece is open to help with heat dissipation but no active cooling is provided.  The external enclosure housing is vented on the bottom to help with cooling and the stand helps to make this area open to cool air.  During testing the enclosure never got hot to the touch and peaked at about 98 degrees F.

The four external screws are hexes and can be installed using the included tool,  The tool is nice but the mounting can be tricky due to the outside piece flexing.  I recommend using a standard tool if one is available.

With the lighting down the top Luxon Advanced ED is definitely an eyecatcher.

Test System:

     For this review we'll be using an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard which is based on Intel's 975X chipset.  The test Hard drive is a Seagate 7200.10 250 Gb drive using the latest Perpendicular recording technology.  Here is a basic rundown of the test system:

Testing:

     All hard drive testing will be conducted using HD Tach RW. ClubOC has been using HD Tach for years and it has proven itself to be the most accurate and reliable hard drive benchmarking program we've used.

Test #1 - USB 2.0

     The first test we ran was using the USB 2.0 interface. I connected the USB through my Ultra Buddy Hub which may have introduced a slight bit of variance to the numbers but nothing that would spoil the test. As expected, the USB 2.0 works great, requires no drivers for Windows 2000 or XP, and was hassle free. The only problem is USB 2.0 is slow when it comes to transferring large amounts of data. The burst rate of the LUXON Advanced ED reaches a respectable 35.1 MB/s and average read and write speeds of 33.6 MB/s and 33.1 MB/s, In this case the USB interface provides the performance bottleneck. In contrast our last Luxon with a Seagate 7200.9 250 back in November of 06 achieved a much slower burst rate of only 26.3 MB/s and average read and write speeds of 26.0 MB/s and 6.2 MB/s.

Test #2 - eSATA

     This time we used the eSATA port and the external SATA connection on my ABIT Fatal1ty.  With eSATA, the benchmarks are much higher resulting in a burst rate of 124.5 MB/s with average read and write speeds of 68.1 MB/s and 63.4 MB/s. This is far above the previous drive testing results of 68.6 MB/s with average read and write speeds of 59.1 MB/s and 44.1 MB/s.  The best external drive enclosure is the one that provides throughput like its not there, and clearly the eSATA comes closest to that blasting the old drive and enclosure right out of the water. 

Conclusion:

     The VIZO LUXON Advanced ED shows just how far Vizo has come with this design.  The eSATA has really taken the market by storm and the true 3.0 Gb/s eSATA interface will probably be the fastest we will see anytime soon.  With the USB 2.0 tests it is easy to see why the upgrade to eSATA is worth it to bring out the maximum speed today's performance drives are capable of.

     The construction of the Vizio Luxon is clean and features a mirror finish that is so shiny they provide a cleaning cloth, what more can you say to that?  The fit of the external screws was a but tight during the installation, which may be due to the book style of the external shell, but I was able to get them flush mounted with a full size screwdriver.  I found the hex screws a mixed blessing but the included tool will be enough to get things done for the average builder.  The venting on the bottom is functional but with no active cooling the venting may have been more effective letting heat out not allowing cool air in.

     Things have come a long way since our first test last year and its hard to believe how quickly things change.  Fortunately the Luxon design has changed with them.  There is absolutely no reason to settle for a single interface enclosure and the fastest performance requires 3GB/s rated eSATA.  The Luxon Advanced ED is ready to roll today and flexible to grow with the fastest drives on the market going forward. 

Note: Club Overclocker is now using a new rating system based on a score of 1 to 5.
Please go to our rating system page for more information.

Performance:	5 out of 5
Innovation:	4 out of 5
Quality:	4 out of 5
Stability:	N/A
Aesthetics:	4 out of 5
Software/Drivers Pack:	N/A
Overclocking:	N/A
Value:	4 out of 5
Project Skill Level (5 being most difficult)	2 out of 5