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Date: July 31st, 2009
Article by: Jackie Mueller (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Eagle Tech
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PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING

To begin installation, four screws on the bottom of the unit must be removed. This will release the inside mounting tray. Remember to backup any existing data and format the drives before installing them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the screws are removed, the mounting tray can be pulled out. Make sure to remove the tray slowly so you can unplug the power cable – the tray won't come out without unplugging this cable first.

Each drive is then mounted onto the tray and secured with four screws. Once the drives are attached to the trays, everything can be put back together and the unit powered on.

When the unit is on, you are greeted with a bright blue glow from the front to indicate power. During drive activity the LED will flash red. The fan doesn't make a lot of noise, either.

No drivers are needed to use the enclosure on a Windows XP system. The enclosure automatically combines the two drives inside into one, so the two 250GB drives I installed are seen as one 500GB drive in Windows. The manual explains how JBOD works in more detail, so if you have any questions it is a good reference.

It's now time to copy some files and record the time it takes to transfer them to and from the enclosure. To begin, I copied a 4.35GB file between two internal SATA drives in my test PC running Windows XP SP3. It took 1 minute, 31 seconds. Let's compare that to the time it takes to copy the same file to the enclosure:

4.35GB File Transfer (USB 2.0)

Both read and write speeds are good; other enclosures in this price range that I've tested had results that were within just a few seconds of the ET-CSIU2-BK. I wish there was an eSATA port on this unit though. For large file transfers it is much faster than USB, although USB is still a necessity due to its high compatibility. My personal preference is to have both available.

 

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<--CLICK FOR PRICES ON A JBOD DRIVE ENCLOSURE IN CANADA