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"Vantec EZ-Swap EX"
SUMMARY: Attractive, durable SATA package for mobile storage.
The good guys at Vantec sent over a sample of their EZ-Swap EX internal/external 2.5" SATA hard drive enclosure to try out. This is a very sleek, aluminum alloy unit for portable storage which slides into a SATA sleeve docking unit that can be installed on your PC (Note: This will work as a hot-swap unit if your hard drive controller supports this feature).
Mounting a 2.5" SATA HD requires removing two screws from the external enclosure's back plate - the PCB easily slides out:
The SATA connector:
The back of the PCB shows the controller chip:
The hard drive slips into the SATA connector and is held in place with mounting screws:
The back of the enclosure shows the SATA ports, USB port and external power supply connector:
The back of the internal sleeve shows the power connectors and the SATA port:
For this test I used a Toshiba MK6034GSX, a 60 GB SATA drive, 5400 rpm with an 8MB buffer. When inserted into the sleeve and hooked up to a SATA connector (Abit AI7 mobo) it turned in these numbers:
In comparison I benched a Seagate IDE Barracuda 7200.7, 120 GB, 7200 rpm, 8MB buffer which turned in the following:
Finally I benched the Toshiba using the USB port:
It is not inconceivable that a faster 2.5" SATA drive could approximate the performance of a 3.5" system drive, although when used with a USB port, performance will be less.
A very nice package with very good performance potential - a good solution for portable storage. A fast 2.5" HD should perform quite well compared to internal 3.5" HDs.
Many thanks to Vantec for sending this our way - a nice product!
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