Portable Performance: Four USB 3.0 Enclosures For Your 2.5” Drive
USB 3.0 is set to become the de facto standard for performance-oriented portable devices. We take a look at four enclosures that bring modern performance to pocket-sized storage. If you have an old laptop drive laying around, throw it in one of these.
Test Settings
Test-System Configuration | |
---|---|
CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (2.66 GHz, 8MB Shared L3 Cache) |
CPU Cooler | Rosewill FORT120 |
Motherboard | Gigabyte X58A-UD7, BIOS F6 (03-11-2010) |
RAM | Kingston KHX16000D3ULT1K3/6GX (6GB) DDR3-2000 at DDR3-1600 CAS 7-7-7-20 |
Graphics | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB 725 MHz GPU, GDDR5-4000 |
OS Hard Drive | Western Digital Velociraptor WD3000HLFS, 300GB 10,000 RPM, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB cache |
Test Drive | Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SATA 6 Gb/s |
USB 3.0 Host | Integrated NEC D720200F1, PCIe 2.0 (x1) |
Sound | Integrated HD Audio |
Network | Integrated Gigabit Networking |
Power | Corsair CMPSU-850HX 850W Modular ATX12V v2.2, EPS12V, 80 PLUS Gold |
Software | |
OS | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
Graphics | AMD Catalyst 10.3 |
Chipset | Intel INF 9.1.1.1020 |
Benchmarks | |
h2benchw 3.13 | Sequential and Sustained Reads and Writes (KB/s) Interface Bandwidth (MB/s) and Access Times (ms) |
We wanted the most direct PCIe 2.0 connection to the chipset possible, and got it using an X58 motherboard from Gigabyte. The X58A-UD7 graced our recent high-end System Builder Marathon PC and a full review of the board is forthcoming.
Proven at speeds beyond 300 MB/s, Crucial’s SATA 6 Gb/s RealSSD C300 is the fastest drive we could get our hands on for today’s review.
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Gin Fushicho You guys are really benching cases? I figured they'd all be close to the same anyway.Reply -
Crashman SubSonix1I know this isn't relevant, but what is in the pcie1 slot?Reply
Nothing, the slot is covered by an extended chipset heat sink. -
Crashman TomD_1So basically, they all have identical hardware, and IMO all look uglyReply
You forgot to mention they all fit in a shirt pocket. That is the most important part. -
warmon6 thejerkScraping the bottom of the barrel for non-iPad news?Reply
Um.... few things,
1. They haven't been just covering the ipad. They been covering alot of other things.
2. This isn't news. This is a review. Learn the difference. -
kelfen if ya think about it this is more cost effective per GB to buy one of these and a hard drive then buying a usb driveReply -
rooket What's the performance like if you use it with a hard drive? Just same as usb 2.0 I'd imagine? Odd that they're only hitting 35MB/sec with USB 2.0. It should go 60MB/sec. Why is this only half the speed?Reply