The interior is built up modularly, with a printed circuit board (PCB) that houses the LEDs on the front of the device. A second PCB hosts the components for the RAID configuration and the eSATA bridge.
It is interesting to note that Thecus uses a PCI Express slot to connect the drive cage to the controller PCB. If the device will one day become an NAS system , all Thecus has to do is exchange the controller board with the NAS version, which carries a network port instead of the eSATA connector.
The aluminum drive cage as well as the backplane only serves to lock the hard drive into the device and put the SATA contacts through to the controller on the PCB.
The drive cage can accommodates two 3.5" SATA drives.
Here you can see that Thecus uses a PCI Express interface to connect the drive cage and the controller board. All unused pins were taped.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
