Thermaltake SilverRiver is missing.
IMHO this is the best hi-perf one o the market.
If you can, try to garb oen and make an folow-up on this article.
Also to menstion the crappiness of ViPower product would be nice then...

which enclosure keeps the temperature down best? I don't see any temperature chart...

Why not test the FireWire connections?

Nice review. I've been thinking of building a low-cost system as a file server etc at home, and using an external HD would be a convenient way of extending the storage capacity. For the review to be useful for something like that, I think there are additional aspects that need to be covered:
* Average power consumption - e.g. in Sweden an average power consumption of 100 Watts costs about 100 EUR/year.
* Noise - (closely related to fan or no fan?)
* HD temperature (also related to fan)

Finally, it'd be nice with some information regarding the read/write speeds compared to a real task. Someone that only reads .mp3s from the external HDD doesn't need that much speed, whereas someone streaming video needs much more. This is equivalent to how you in your review of graphic cards comment on that the frame rate is too low or sufficient.

cheers

Bummer...unable to find any AgeStar products in USA....would have been nice to see the SCB3AH tested.

# Suitable for 3.5" SATAⅠ/SATAⅡ HDD
# Support USB2.0 to Serial ATA with data transfer rate up to 480Mb/s
# Support eSATA to SATA with data transfer rate up to 1.5Gb/s(SATAⅠ),3.0Gb/s(SATAⅡ)
# With one-touch backup function
# LED indicate power & HDD activity
# Integrated 1 cooling fan
# Support Hot-Plug,Plug&Play

how about temperature/heat test? From my personal experience a poorly design external enclousure after 30 mins of usage can be very hot sometime, and that may potentially damage the hard drive. Therefore a good external enclousure that keep the hard drive cool is highly desireable for consumer.

Thank you :)

Good, but how about the maximum temperatures that the drives reach during, for example, an hour or two of intense mix of copying/reading? it doesn't matter if you have the "fastest" hdd enclosure if it kills your hdd with 55-60 degrees C. And do the SMART parameters change in any way?

U have not compared the heat sinking capabilities and the grounding of these casings.
Ur article jus tells us how good the product is wen it is new,but to know which product will run for a long time without damaging the HDD one mus take into consideration the heat sinking and grounding capabilities of the drive.

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