Sturdy, attractive 3.5″ hard drive enclosure with acceptable performance – Joe
SUMMARY: Sturdy, attractive 3.5″ hard drive enclosure with acceptable performance.
The good guys at Mapower Electronics were nice enough to send their 3.5″ external hard drive enclosure model # Map-KC31C1 to try out.
Key features include:
- IEEE1394 FireWire & USB 2.0 high speed ports
- Blue LED indicating power on and hard drive activity
- Aluminum Construction
- External power supply
- Drive stand
- Screwdriver
- Driver disk for W98
The back
shows the power switch, power plug, FireWire and USB ports. Unscrewing the top (the included screwdriver is a nice touch but not really necessary)
reveals the ribbon cable, power plug and PCB:
Parts that ship with the enclosure include
all required cables, screws, screwdriver, drive stand and the external power supply – everything needed to get going (there is also a driver disk, not shown).
Setting the enclosure is a snap – just insert a formatted drive, hook up the cables and you’re ready; if you’re using Windows 98SE, you’ll need to install the drivers before using. I used an older WD 10G drive, # WD100EB (5400 rpm, ATA100) to test it out. I benchmarked the Warps using HDTach, version 2.52, to give some idea of performance. I benched the hard drive in the enclosure cabled to a USB 2.0 port and then hooked up directly to the motherboard’s secondary IDE port.
Interesting results! I benched almost 3 times faster read speed at a marginally slower access time. Results will vary, depending upon the drive, system and ports used; however, as a portable drive, I’d be pleased with these results.
This is a pretty sturdy product – in normal use, this enclosure should give enough protection to a 3.5″ drive so that throwing the enclosure into a briefcase or backpack should not be a problem. Overall, the build quality is very good, performance is acceptable and the design is attractive – a very nice package!
Thanks again to Mapower Electronics for allowing us to try this out.
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