Back in April, I reviewed Thermaltake’s BlacX USB Hard Drive dock and heralded it as a step in the right direction, away from those boring hard drive enclosures out there. Although it was a cool concept, it lacked in the performance department due in part to the omission of something faster than your standard USB port. Vantec has come along with a new product called the NexStar eSata/USB Hard Drive Dock which sports not only lowly USB, but kicks up the performance with an eSATA port.
Features and Specifications
The Vantec NexStar Hard Drive Dock supports both 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA I/II drives. That means, IDE need not apply. The USB 2.0 boasts transfer rates up to 480Mbps while the eSATA takes that right up to 3Gbps. As you can see, there is a potential pay off in speed here. The unit is made entirely of plastic and measures 136 x 83 x 87 mm so it should fit even in the tightest spaces. Out of the box, the unit supports both Mac OS 8.6 and above and almost all flavours of Windows from 98SE and above. It even supports Linux with Kernels 2.4.18 and above. Of course, you’ll need a USB 2.0 port to get the full USB experience, and an eSATA or SATA port for maximum performance.
What’s In The Box?
Vantec has a reputation of throwing absolutely everything you could possibly need into the box, and this is no different with the NexStar Hard Drive Dock. You get the dock itself of course, instruction manual, driver CD for those OSes that need drivers, power adapter and cord, USB Cable, eSATA Cable and an eSATA bracket just in case your motherboard doesn’t already have an eSATA port on the back panel.
I’ve found that a lot of enclosures and even off the shelf drives don’t include this missing piece of the puzzle even though they support eSATA. That’s really bizarre because it’s a cable you won’t find on the shelf at your local big box computer store so kudos to Vantec for taking care of the end user.
First Impressions
After pulling out the drive dock from the packaging, it felt really light to me. Compared to the brick that was the Thermaltake BlacX, this Vantec NexStar felt like a piece of styrofoam. Granted, the NexStar is definitely a lot prettier, but I usually like my gear with a bit of substance. Afterall, it’s not like you’re going to be carrying it around or anything. It would be a shame if someone came by and knocked it over while a drive was spinning inside.
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Moving right along, the NexStar uses a similar flap system to the BlacX. When you’re using a smaller 2.5 inch SATA drive, the flap stays closed, revealing only the insert for that size of drive. When you plug in a full size 3.5 inch drive, the flap will drop and accommodate the larger drive. I can’t say that I’m pleased with the durability of the flap. The flexy nature of the plastic would snag on some drives during insertion and there were a couple instances where I was a little afraid to push the drive to lock it into place for fear of breaking the flap. But once you get it in there, it stays put. One thing that I didn’t like about the BlacX was the exposed back. Not everyone is careful with beverages and the NexStar has the same risk factor.
The release mechanism seemed solid and pushes the drive straight up. I actually liked the actuation of this system as it provided a much more positive ejection than that of the Thermaltake BlacX.
Plugs and Buttons
The front of the unit is adorned with a large on/off button that pushes to start. I don’t think you can miss that one. When in operation, the ring around the button glows blue, and the strip at the bottom acts as a drive activity indicator.
Moving around back, we see our USB 2.0 port an eSATA port and the connection for the power adapter. Sad to see that there is no Firewire 400/800 port for all those Mac users out there.
Overall, compared to the Thermaltake BlacX Hard Drive Dock, the NexStar does seem a bit lightweight, and seemingly less durable. However, the NexStar does seem to make up for it with a more logical front mounted power button, a better ejection system, and a far prettier presentation. Oh, and the inclusion of a higher speed eSATA port is nice too. Let’s move on to our performance testing and wrap this puppy up.
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Performance
Although we didn’t have a 2.5 inch SATA hard drive, we did have a Seagate Barracude 7200.10 SATA II 250 GB Hard Drive. We’ll be running benchmarks using HD Tach and comparing the results between USB and the faster eSATA.
USB 2.0 Peformance
The USB 2.0 performance was good, topping out at a 35.2 MB/s and averaging 34.8 MB/s. Random access times were 13.7ms while CPU utilization was a reasonable 10%. However, in the big scheme of things, it’s kinda slow, particularly if you are using it to transfer or backup large files.
eSATA Performance
Since eSATA basically puts out the same performance as an internal hard drive, it was no surprise when it blew away the USB 2.0 results. We had a max transfer speed of 119.0 MB/s with an average speed of 65.9 MB/s; nearly twice to triple the fastest speed that USB 2.0 could put down.
Final Thoughts
It’s pretty clear that the performance crown goes to the Vantec NexStar Hard Drive Dock. They were smart to include the eSATA onboard, which has yielded some very impressive results while USB provides mostly universal connectivity with most computers. Although the performance is there, the durability is questionable. The unit feels very lightweight and the flap for the drive dock seems flimsy. I would really like to see something more solid in the future. While doing that, the addition of Firewire 400/800 might open this product up to the Mac community as well.
Although the toughness is somewhat a question, it is clear that Vantec has done a great job with the cosmetics and the layout of the design. The ejection lever is solid and the front panel mounted on/off button is convenient. The drive activity indicator is also a nice touch. For now, the NexStar offers enough for me to let it walk away with my recommendation, but do be gentle with it.
Pros
- Front mounted on/off switch and drive activity indicator
- Positive ejection level action
- eSATA offers high performance conveniently
Cons
- Build quality is a little suspect
- Exposed back can be a bit hazardous for habitual spilly talkers
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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