Date: October 15th, 2008
Article by: Jackie Mueller (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Norco
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH
All in all the enclosure is fairly nice looking with a clean look throughout. The drive trays are framed by a piece of clear plastic, which can be easily removed if you like.
The DS-500 has various LEDs to indicate both normal operation and if there's a problem. At the top right are lights for fan malfunction as well as a high temperature warning light. Each drive tray has its own set of LEDs as well – a green power light and red activity light.
An LCD is located at the bottom that displays some basic information when the unit is powered up. During the testing phase of the review, we'll take another look at it in action.
At the back is a 92mm fan for cooling, an internal power supply, power switch, eSATA port. All the connectors and switches common to enclosures such as this are here.
The bottom has four small plastic feet to keep the unit from sliding around. I was hoping for bigger pads given the size of the enclosure, but these still get the job done.
Removing all the trays and looking inside reveals the five SATA connections for hard drives and a partially visible cooling fan. As you can see, the hard drive area is not separated into drive bays which helps with proper ventilation without obstruction.
Now that we've seen the exterior and a peek of the inside, drives can be installed. Let's move on…
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