Vantec EZ-Swap EX 666

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).

• Mounts into 3.5″ or 5.25″ PC Bays
• Interfaces: Internal SATA, External USB 2.0
• Sizes: External Enclosure: 141 x 73 x 16mm; Sleeve 144 x 100 x 24mm
• Aluminum External Enclosure, Plastic 3.5″ Sleeve
• LEDs for Power and HD Activity
• Parts include USB Cable, SATA Cable, Power Cable, Manual, Carry Case and Mounting Screws

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!

Email Joe