Here are the club, we are no strangers to Vantec's products, including the NexStar line of external hard drive enclosures.  While often overlooked, a handy hard drive enclosure can be the key to making sure your LAN party goes off without a hitch, or diagnosing a customer hard drive in the field. While it might seem that all enclosures are the same, I have to say they are not.  An ideal enclosure should be able to handle some abuse without breaking, and it should always perform to the maximum allowed by the connected hardware.  Which brings us to Vantec.  Every so often, Vantec takes their current NexStar enclosure and improves it in order to keep current with market standards.  This new NexStar 3 is no different.  So what makes it special?  Read on and find out!

Specifications

Features

• Aluminum Casing Cools Down Your Hard Drive

• Transfer Rates Up to 3Gbps W/ eSATA

• Transfer Rates Up to 480Mbps W/ Usb 2.0 (12Mbps W/ USB1.1)

• Transfer Rates Up to 400Mbps W/ FireWire 400(1394a)

• Transfer Rates Up to 800Mbps W/FireWire 800(1394b)

• Hot-Swappable: Plug And Play Without Rebooting

• Attractive Blue LED Indicates Power/HDD Activity

Packaging and Contents

When you have a good thing going, you roll with it.  The NexStar brand has been around for a few years now, and the packaging hasn't changed much either.

Vantec also threw in their PCI FireWire 400/800 card for our testing.  This card is the UGT-FW100 and runs about $45-$60 in most e-tail shops.  While some motherboards will support onboard FireWire 400, FireWire 800 is pretty rare.

The FireWire card also includes a Molex adaptor and a half-height bracket. 

The enclosure also includes a myriad of cables needed to connect to any of the ports on the improved NexStar, including an eSATA bracket, USB cable, 1394B-to-1394B, 1394B-to-1394A, and eSATA cable.

Finally, the NexStar also includes a wall-wart and stand for vertical placement.