Installation:

     I installed the internal drive bay into my AeroCool AE Plus using the 5.25” adapter.  Thanks to the larger door on the front I was able to keep things closed even with the enclosure installed.  The activity light adds some color to the installation without being overly bright.

 Testing:

     With the drive inserted Windows Plug and Play does the rest of the work.  I tested the setup in both XP and Vista 64 with no problems detecting or using the drive.

     To test the enclosures performance we will take the Seagate Momentus numbers and see how they are effected by the enclosures pass through in SATA and via USB.

     Here you see the Seagate numbers as tested in my review back in May.  With a solid 14.6ms random access, an average read of 49.2 and an average write of 45.2 the Momentus is definitely a drive to beat.

     Here we have the same drive mounted in the internal 5.25" adapter.  The result is a nearly identical 14.1ms random access, with an average read of 49.2 and an average write of 49.0 MB/s.  As you can see the drive performance is only very slightly effected by the additional layer of hardware.

     The USB test yielded some respectable scores like 15.1ms random access, an average read of 18.7 and an average write of 18.0MB/s.  Clearly the USB interface doesn’t have the same bandwidth the true SATA can provide, but the numbers still look pretty good!

     With today’s technology the impact of an enclosures pass through is almost nonexistent leaving only the limitations of the drive to slow you down.  That’s why your salvaged old 6 gig laptop drive may get you by, but its definitely not the best paring with a modern external enclosure!

Conclusion:

     The Vantec EX Swap EX is very easy to setup and install requiring just a couple of minutes for the external enclosure and not much more for the internal components.  As with any enclosure the performance is dependent on your drive choice, but as you can see from our Momentus tests, the EZ Swap EX retains nearly all of the performance over SATA. 

      The real joy of using the EX is the ability to walk in and slide the drive into my PC like an old tape deck and immediately have my files available without having to mess with any cables.  The Vantec EZ Swap EX is easy to use and provides a new level of versatility to your external storage solution.  If you are looking at an external storage enclosure you should strongly consider jumping up to the EX.  Why settle for just a USB enclosure?

Innovation:	9.0 out of 10
Performance:	10 out of 10
Quality:	9.5 out of 10
Stability:	N/A
Overclocking:	N/A
Software/Drivers Pack:	N/A
Value:	8.0 out of 10
Overall Rating 9.0
Project Skill Level (10 being most difficult)	3 out of 10