X-bit labs

Transcend 2.5” Portable Hard Disk Drive Review: Another External Drive with USB 2.0 Interface (page 2)

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 01/29/2004 | 09:45 AM ]

Closer Look: Shenzhen Luwen Electronics Co. Ltd. Storage Kingdom Easyharddisk

The second external drive taken for a more illustrative comparison during the test session has already been described in great detail in this article, that is why I will simply mention its basic specs and major features this time. Easyharddisk is designed in a flat gray case with yellow sides. At the top there is the product name and Hi-Speed sign. Also there are two LEDs indicating the work mode. The device is powered from the PS/2 port and the power supply cable is equipped with a corresponding plug. The connector for this cable is located at the back of the case, next to the mini-USB port.

The drive we took for our today’s tests is 40GB big. It supports USB 2.0 specification. The size of the case equals 135x75x16mm.

Besides the hard disk the package also contained a protective carry-bag for device transportation, a brief user’s manual, a USB cable, a power supply cable and a CD-disk with the full version of the user’s guide and drivers.

This hard disk drive also uses a Hitachi solution inside: it is IC25N040ATMR04. This HDD belongs to a not very up-to-date Travelstar 80GN family developed by IBM. This HDD model differs from the pervious one by considerably higher data density – 70Gbit/sq.inch against 34Gbit/sq.inch, which definitely implies a significant advantage in the internal data transfer rate.

Testbed and Methods

These are the programs we used for our today’s test session:

• WinBench 99 2.0;
• FC-Test 0.5.3;

Our testbed was configured as follows:

• Albatron PX865PE Pro mainboard;
• Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPU;
• IBM DTLA-307015 15GB system HDD;
• RADEON 7000 32MB graphics card;
• 256MB RAM;
• Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4.

Both external drives were connected to USB 2.0 ports of the mainboard (ICH5) and tested with the OS drivers.