In today’s world, people need to carry their data with them wherever they go. Memory sticks and USB drives are fine for small files, but transporting large amounts of data from work to home is impractical. An external portable hard drive can be just the thing to lug alot of data between home and the office, and can also be used as expanded storage for laptop users.
Using an external hard drive enclosure makes it possible to transform a normal 3.5″ internal hard drive into a portable data expansion. These can be used on any computer with USB. Athena Power’s SNT-2312B2 external 3.5″ enclosure hopes to wrap its aluminum arms around your hard drive’s bits and bytes for your data expansion needs.
Manufacturer’s specs:
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A Closer Look
The ST-2312B2 enclosure comes enclosed in plastic with a printed cardboard backing. The enclosure is prominently displayed through the clear plastic, and the power supply and USB cable are tucked underneath the enclosure. Tucked inside the enclosure itself are the four installation screws, a user guide and a driver disk (for Windows 98 users).
The enclosure has a silver aluminum body that has been textured to shimmer more light, with smoked acrylic end caps. The actylic looks like it can easily crack or scratch, but is actually pretty rugged. There are 4 rubber pads on the bottom of the enclosure for stability.
There are no rubber pads for the sides, so this drive is intended to be laid flat on your desk. There are no cutouts or holes to dissipate heat, and there’s no fan to be found, either. The rear of the enclosure houses the power switch and connector, and a USB 2.0 port. There are also two screws here that secure the drive tray within the enclosure.
Installation is relatively simple: just remove the tray, attach the hard drive with the four provided screws, and reinsert the tray into the enclosure and tighten the rear screws.
The back screws can only be partiall removed, as they are permanently attached to the drive tray. Once they are loosened from the external enclosure, the drive tray slides out. The drive is affixed to the tray by installing screws to the underside of the hard drive. The drive tray is not a completely secure fit, as it does rattle slightly inside the case. There are no air ducts or fans of any kind, so any heat must be naturally eliminated through radiation and convection.
The drive tray’s power connector is adjustable (can be slid left or right) to accommodate the variances between different drives. A tiny screw holds the power connector in one spot, which must be loosened before adjustment. Once alignment is determined, the drive slides securely to the connections. There is also a 2-pin connector for a small fan, but none is included.
The USB cable and power adapter are plugged in and the drive is ready. The USB cable uses the standard square to rectangular adapter. (it is about 3 ½ feet long). No driver is required unless you are using Windows 98 SE.
Once the enclosure’s power switch is turned on, the drive spins up, which takes a few seconds. The onboard electronics verify the drive is ready, and then Windows recognizes the drive with its familiar “device connection beep”.
The drive is as quiet as the hard drive installed in it. It takes about 10 minutes for the enclosure to feel warm to the touch. An IR thermometer diagnoses the external temperature at 105 degrees. Everyone knows that keeping temperatures low will prolong the life of your electronic equipment.
Most hard drives are built to tolerate much higher temperatures, and should never be affected by this constant warm temperature, but many users would feel better if the enclosure was not hot to the touch.
An older 5,400 RPM drive should be no problem, but a 7,200 RPM drive will definitely generate more heat. Don’t even think about putting a 10,000 RPM drive in this enclosure (it will be a complete waste of performance, and will generate too much heat).
The front hard drive activitiy light is clearly visible from any angle. The single LED displays 2 different colors depending on the drive status. When powered on, the light is green and orange when there is drive activity.
Testing was performed using HDTach 2.61 and two different hard drives, a 40GB Maxtor and 20GB Western Digital Caviar. Our test system utilizes an nForce4 motherboard with the latest nForce drivers installed. Windows XP Service Pack 2 was installed, so full USB 2.0 support is enabled. The specifications of our test system are listed below:
- Athlon 64 X2 3800+
- Asus A8N-SLI SE motherboard
- 1GB DDR-400 memory
- Soundblaster X-fi sound card
- XFX 7800GT video card
- Maxtor 40GB HDD (5400RPM)
- Western Digital 20GB HDD (5400RPM)
- Windows XP SP2
HD Tach was used to test the drive’s speed within the enclosure, and benchmarks were run several times to verify the score. Even though both test drives are older, they were able to keep up with the bandwidth this enclosure offered, around 25MB per second. HD Tach also reported CPU utilization of 18.4% for the external enclosure, which is a little high for drive activity.
The transfer rate over USB 2.0 is a theoretical 480Mbit (around 60MB) a second, and is more than enough bandwidth for any drive to appear transparent. No hard drive will really ever come close to this theoretical maximum, as a read speed of 20 to 25MB falls far short, but is on par with other external USB enclosures. An average transfer speed of 20.3MBit can be expected.
Conclusion
Overall this is a decent enclosure. The box looks nice on your desk, but doesn’t come with any frills. Those that worry about heat should avoid this enclosure, as the only way to disperse heat is through natural radiation, although you can always point a fan in the device’s general direction.
The hard drive indicator light is highly visible and installation was easy. Performance is satisfactory for an external drive. The enclosure will accept ATA drives of varying capacities, and can be manipulated just like any other drive. This enclosure is an easy way to upgrade one’s system without a lot of hassle.
There are other external enclosures out there that have more features for about the same amount of money. They either have Firewire or active cooling. You need to pay attention to the chipset used and the maximum drive capacity.
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