Macally G-S350SUA Hi-Speed eSATA/FireWire/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5-Inch SATA HDD
by Macally
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Category: CE
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: MacallyAudio: English (Original Language)
Format: CD
Model: G-S350SUA
Product features:
- eSATA 1394A CASE
- Macally G-S350SUA Hi-Speed eSATA/FireWire/
- USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5-Inch SATA HDD
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Macally G-S350SUA Hi-Speed eSATA/FireWire/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5-Inch SATA HDD
Customer Review: Nice looking enclosure, does the job.
Summary: 4 Stars
Nice looking enclosure, that can laid flat or stood on the end with the enclosed stand (not pictured). It also has strips of plastic that screw into the U shaped projections on the chassis -- I'm not sure what they're for (maybe I should read the manual), but they don't seem necessary if you are using the stand. Installing the drive is a snap; it takes longer to get this thing out of the shipping box than it does to put the drive in.
Annoyingly bright blue LEDs seem to be common on these kinds of enclosures, and although this too has a blue LED that is brighter than it needs to be, it is recessed behind the button and thus not blinding as with many external enclosures. The LED is not uncomfortably bright in a lit room, but it may be brighter than you want in a dark room. It's fine in an office, for example, but you wouldn't want to use it in the same room as your home entertainment system. It's too bad because it is otherwise an attractive enclosure.
I bought this to do database work on my laptop. Such work is very slow on a 2.5" notebook drive. I've got a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS (640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache) in it, which is decent but not particularly high end. In this enclosure, with either firewire or USB 2.0, that disk is just a tad faster than the built in notebook drive, maybe 15-20%. With an ExpressCard eSata adapter, it's dramatically faster, about 3x as fast as the notebook drive. Your results will vary with your drive and chipset.
My enclosure/drive combination does fine on Firewire and USB 2.0. I haven't seen any dramatic difference between Firewire and USB 2.0 -- Firewire might get the edge, but it's not enough to worry about. If you are worried about speed, then you should definitely add eSata to your system provided you have a desktop or a notebook with an ExpressCard slot.
Naturally, this isn't something you can take on the plane with you, but if you use your laptop as a desktop replacement, this can be quite useful when you've got AC power to plug into and need a fast drive. Unlike many 2.5" enclosures, you must power this thing off the included power brick, which is particularly clunky, even as such things go. It would be terrific if you could power this of a USB Y cable, but that's probably not practical given the power some full size drives require vs. how much juice you can draw off a USB port.
I've used this on Linux and Windows laptops, as well as a Mac Mini. It works fine in Linux under USB 2.0 or eSata. Firewire under Linux seems a bit flaky unless the drive has already been formatted -- although I've had the same problem with other 1394 enclosures. I've only done USB 2.0 under Windows (fine), and on a Mac Mini I've used both USB 2.0 and Firewire, both performed flawlessly. There's no option for adding eSata to the Mini, so I can't say about eSata on MacOS, but I'd guess if you have a supported card you'd probably be fine.
More Macally G-S350SUA Hi-Speed eSATA/FireWire/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5-Inch SATA HDD reviews:
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Description of Macally G-S350SUA Hi-Speed eSATA/FireWire/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5-Inch SATA HDD
MacAlly G-S350SUA 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure G-S350SUA Drive CabinetsDigital Cameras & Photo Categories
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