Posted 12/13/08 at 07:26:35 PM by Justin Kerr

eSATA ports are starting to become more mainstream in mid to low end motherboards, and OCZ thinks the time is right to start adding on non hard drive based peripherals. Its new lineup of memory sticks will do just that and come in 8, 16, and 32GB capacities. The new drives will both communicate and receive their power from the eSATA port. To ensure backwards compatibility they have also included a rear mounted mini USB connection which will allow users to plug the device into laptops or other USB only machines.

No official benchmarks are have been taken by us, but the company is reportedly boasting read speeds of up to 90MB/s, and writes speeds as fast as 30MB/s. No comment has yet been made on pricing, but it will likely be in the same ballpark as its USB brethren.

It certainly is an interesting idea, but I can’t help but wonder if this type of device is really necessary with USB 3.0 right around the corner. USB 3.0 has a maximum theoretical throughput of 4.8Gbps which would easily max out most flash memory keys several times over.

Would you be interested in an eSATA flash drive? Hit the jump and let us know.

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Posted 01/29/08 at 08:13:08 PM by David Murphy

For a device called the Jazz, Enermax’s newest USB and eSATA external 3.5” hard drive enclosure isn’t much of an improvisation in the ho-hum world of storage containers. In fact, we can only think of one major differences that set this device apart from most every other enclosure we’ve tested: you can see through it.

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Posted 01/28/08 at 04:23:30 PM by David Murphy

We have 300 words to tell you about the wonders of SilverStone’s DS351 external hard drive enclosure, but we need just four syllables: me-di-o-cre. It’s not that the enclosure is overwhelmingly slow, broken, or impossible to manage, but the device dips its toe enough into each of each these categories to make for a less than stellar experience.

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Posted 01/22/08 at 01:29:36 PM by David Murphy

We were about to lead off this review with a Nelson Muntz-style “ha-ha” at Seagate, whose 750GB FreeAgent Pro has now fallen from the top of our external storage rankings thanks to Maxtor’s OneTouch 4. And then we remembered that Seagate now owns Maxtor. Whoops.

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Posted 01/17/08 at 08:18:00 PM by David Murphy

There’s not a lot to say about Fabrik’s Simpletech Duo Pro Drive. That’s not for any lack of remarkableness or underperformance on the part of the device itself. It’s just as plain-Jane as a storage unit can get.

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Posted 12/20/07 at 08:06:51 PM by David Murphy

Finally, somebody gets it right.

Although it seems impossible, we have reached an apex of technology in the exciting world of external storage. Icy Dock’s MB664US-1S hard drive enclosure is an absolute dream come true. It’s a marvel of functionality and form, a shining beacon that serves as an example to every competing product we’ve come across. It is the steel-colored Lancelot of your storage needs, the kind of friend you hope your hard drive keeps for the entirety of its life span. With the MB664US-1S, your data will stay safe, speedy, and easily swappable.

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Posted 11/16/07 at 06:16:13 PM by David Murphy

If we were dating the Western Digital My Book Home Edition, the sordid, brief affair would quickly end with one of those “it’s not you, it’s me” conversations. This 1TB enclosure is like the girl (or guy) who keeps calling and texting and e-mailing and IMing and calling and texting again—every time you connect the device to your PC, you get the same annoying application installation window over and over and over.

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Posted 11/13/07 at 06:17:16 PM by David Murphy

From a design perspective, the Seagate FreeAgent Pro is nearly perfect. The company has turned out a device that looks, dare we say, Apple-esque. Or maybe Orange-esque, the prevailing color that glows and pulsates through the middle of the drive’s tower-like drive holder.

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