I love storage. It doesn’t matter what kind. I have stock in those plastic dresser-style drawers, and I keep ’em chock full of crap I’ll never use or at the most very rarely. Any time I look at a car I check out the trunk first, and try to estimate how many bodies would fit in there. If I’m unsure, I’ll ask the salesman. And yes, I have done it before. Ah, the joys and freedoms of being a sociopath. But my favorite type of storage is always those heavy bricks we call Hard Drives. I have them in all capacities, and when I want to access one, I simply take apart my external storage unit, or power down my computer and take the side off, install the HD, and then put it all back together. It’s a pain in the ass at best.
And then I recieved this little dandy. The T-5F SS by the people at iStarUSA. It’s an HDD reader, like the SD card reader on the front of most of your computers. T5F-SS is a mobile rack for use with 3.5″ SAS and SATA I/II hard drive. The storage capacity of the hard drive is unlimited. The trayless and screwless design is for fast and easy installation. The anti-vibration design gives hard drive an extra protection from damage. Blue LED indicator enables monitor power and hard drive activities. Security key-lock prevents intrusion and theft to the most important data. And, possibly the best of all… it’s Hot Swappable!
Here are some more specs on her:
Features
- Screwless and Trayless Design for fast HDD mounting
- Anti-vibration Design
- Support SAS and SATA I/II Hard Drive
- Key Lock Prevents Theft or Removal During Operation
- Fit for Standard 5.25″ Drive Bay
- Best Air Ventilation with 1 x 40mm Fan
| Model Number | T5F-SS |
| RoHS Compliance Version | Yes |
| Standard Drive Bays | 5.25″ Drive: 1 |
| Interface | SAS / SATA I/II |
| Cooling Fan | 1x40mm |
| Connectors | 2 x SATA Connectors – 4 Pin Power Connector |
| Materials | Frame: Metal – Front Panel: Plastic |
| LED Display | HDD Activity |
| Security | Key Lock |
| Certification | TUV, CSA, CUL/ UL, CE |
| Packaging Information | Mobile Rack, Manual, Keys, and Screws |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) | 146 x 40 x 190 mm |
So now you know what it can handle. And you know what comes in the box. I love it when the manufacturer does my work for me. Unlimited capacity, and a small amount of installation. What more could a storage lover want? And it comes equipped with its own 40mm cooling fan. This little baby is awesome. But enough of my swooning, let’s slap a drive in there and see what it can do. I expect that there won’t be much difference in the data transfer speed, but we’re going to test it anyway. Because that’s the type of in-depth journalism we do here at OCModshop. Okay… my editor is forcing me to do it. He’s so anal.
Installation is a breeze, assuming you have all your wires and cables safely out of your way. I removed the plastic panel from the front of my case, slid the T5F-SS in there, and screwed it down. A simple plugging in of the cables and I was good to go. FYI, there are two SATA-style ports on this, a yellow one and a black one. The yellow one is for SAS only, and the black one is for your SATA drive. It took a minute to figure this out when my PC didn’t recognize that there was a drive connected to it. One other thing I noticed is that the T5 didn’t use the SATA power plug for its juice. It instead used a typical 4-prong power plug. My best guess is that this is to provide adequate power to the fan as well as the HDD.
Now that everything is connected, I put the side back on the case and insert my HDD into the T5F-SS. Man, that sounds dirty doesn’t it? That’s geek dirty talk, my friends. So I open the front door of the T5 and insert the HDD. As I slid it to the back it catches on a metal tab that closes the door as it goes. A small push of the fingertip, and the drive is locked into the plugs at the back of the enclosure. And when you open the door again, the same tab pulls the drive toward you, effectively disconnecting it and sliding it out so you can grasp it. How wonderful.
Just for fun, I used the included keys and locked the door of the T5. On a side note, what good do these keys do? Every lock screw, every other lockable computer component has this exact same key. Any other PC user with a set of these keys can walk right up, unlock your drive bay, and pull your HDD out. Then they walk away whistling to themselves. But alas, I am not the designer, and there’s only so many ways you can make a key for something like this. Although I am sure there are more than just this one…
Back on the subject, I have fired up my computer and am proceeding to run Hard Disk Sentinel Pro to make sure that the speeds are sufficent to receive my two thumbs up. The blue light on the front of the T5 tells me that the drive is being accessed with its constant and bright blue LED blinking. So I close the front of my case to get that annoying light out of my eyes, and sit back and wait for the results of the benchmark test.
As I suspected, the benchmarks on the hard drive’s speed wasn’t affected by the enclosure. I was getting an average speed of 45.89MBs, just under the Western Digital WD2500KS and the Hitachi Deskstar. The enclosure’s fan also seemed to do its job as well. The drive was staying as cool as my OS’s HDD, which is equipped with a single fan cooling system. So all in all, I am happy with the performance of the T5F-SS. The speed is consistent and there is no lag. The cooling system seems to do the job adequately. It’s a breeze to install, just as easy as hooking up a new optical drive. And, did I mention that it’s hot swappable? I’m sure I did, but it’s still a beautiful thing. And swapping is easy too, just open the door and take the drive out, then slide the new drive in. My only suggestion to iStarUSA… check into a new lock and security system. Biometrics is the new black, you know.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1 Comment
I had these in an old server, and they certainly made hot-swapping a lot easier. They are kind of bulky though when compared to integrated hot-swap bays on 1U or 2U servers.