Vizo Luxon Advanced ED USB2/eSATA External Drive Enclosure - Review.

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Vizo Luxon Advanced ED USB2/eSATA External Drive Enclosure.

Today, we will be looking at the very latest USB2/eSATA external hard drive enclosure from Vizo.

Firstly, let's have a look at the info from the Vizo website.

Description.

"VIZO LUXON ADVANCED ED, 3.5" SATA hard drive external enclosure, is designed to be sleek and stylish, easy to use, and loaded with the advanced features you need to back up and transfer your data storage.
LUXON ADVANCED ED features high-quality mirror finishing aluminum case providing the best protection and excellent heat dissipation for your hard drive. It supports SATA hard disks which provides interface not only SATA to USB 2.0, but also SATA to eSATA. Fully supports 3.5" SATA hard drive."

Features.

• Compatible with 3.5" SATA Hard Drive
• Support 480Mbps High Speed USB 2.0 and USB 1.1
• Support 3.0Gbps High Speed external Serial-ATA ( eSATA )
• Real 3Gb/s Chipset for eSATA speed
• Aluminum housing for excellent heat dissipation
• Side vents improve convection for better system cooling
• LED light indicates working status and file transfer
• Stylish outlook with sleek design
• Support plug and play & hot swappable
• Must be attached to SATA 3.0G/eSATA 3.0G hot swappable compliant host to enable hot swappable function.

Specifications.

• Case Material : Aluminum
• Host Interface:
• 480Mbps USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 Compatible)
• 3.0Gbps High Speed external Serial-ATA ( eSATA )
• HDD Type : 3.5 " SATA Hard Drive
• Power Supply : AC/DC Power Adapter
• ( AC input: 100~ 240Vac , DC output: +12V, 2A )
• Indicators : Blue for Power on / Purple for file access 　
• Available colors : Black, Blue, Silver
• Model No. : LUE-360-BK, LUE-360-BL, LUE-360-GY
• Weight : 400 g (without HDD)
• Dimensions : 210(L) x 125 (W) x 34 (H) mm

System Requirements.

• For USB 2.0 : Windows 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP or Mac 8.6 & above
• One USB port available for USB Host
• For eSATA : Windows 2000/XP/Vista or Mac 8.6 & above
• Proper SATA/eSATA port or SATA card available for eSATA host
• * Must have SATA 3.0G/eSATA 3.0G hot swappable compliant host to enable hot swappable function
• Note : Driver needed for window 98/98SE
• Click Here to download Win98 driver

Package Includes.

• 3.5" SATA HDD External Enclosure
• Stand
• USB Cable
• eSATA Cable
• Power Adapter
• Screw Fitting Kit
• Cleaning Cloth
• User Manual

Next - The package & first impressions.

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The Box - Front.



The Box - Back.



Inside The Box.



The Box Contents.



Next - The Enclosure.

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The Enclosure - Logo side.

The outer shell of the enclosure is made from aluminium and is finished in a shiny, tough, black coating (I'm not sure if it's paint or powder coat) with a white/silver/grey decal.

The enclosure can be used flat, or with the plastic stand that you see in the picture below.



The Enclosure - Plain side & Front.

Not much to see here



The internal tray (left) & outer shell (right).

The internal tray is made of plastic and appears to be fairly solid in construction - personally, I would have liked to see an aluminium tray and a fan.



The internal tray - Features from left to right;

• USB2
• eSATA
• Power Switch
• 12v Power Connector
• Indicator LEDs (above the 12v section in the picture)
  

As you can see, good connectivity, we have eSATA instead of Firewire.

Watch out for fingerprints!

This isn't as bad as it looks, but the shiny black finish does show fingerprints as you would expect.



First impressions are good overall, although I was a little disappointed to see that the internal tray is made from plastic and that there is no cooling fan. Read on to find out if my worries were justified

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Test Set Up & Testing.

I am going to fit a Samsung 321KJ 320GB 16MB cache SATA II drive inside the enclosure.

The enclosure will then be hooked up to my laptop via USB 2.

Laptop Specs;

• Dell Vostro 1700
  
• Core 2 Duo T7250
• 2x2GiB PC2-5400 SODIMMs

I will test the overall speed and take the temps of the hard drive under load and at idle.

For testing, I will use my regular set of tools, which include;

• HD Tune
• Sandra

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Results.

HDTune.

28.6 MB/sec Average.



SiSoft Sandra XII Hard Disk Benchmark.

28.75 MB/sec Average.



Slightly below average results for USB 2.

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Conclusion.

I was slightly worried when I first saw that the Luxon didn't have any kind of cooling, and my fears turned out to be justified on this occasion.

Heat, almost certainly affected the hard disk performance slightly, and I believe that possible damage could occur if a drive was left running inside this enclosure for long periods of time.

The other slight annoyance was the vibration that happens when the drive is spinning. There are all kinds of noises that seem to be amplified by the design of the casing. The plastic desk stand that comes with the Luxon caused a high pitched - wasp like noise at certain times when the hard drive was working hard, and had to be removed.

It wasn't all bad though. I particularly liked the long LED disk indicator covers which were complimented nicely by the excellent black and silver taco shell design of the outer casing.

For occasional backup and a good looking storage solution, this is a decent enough enclosure, but it is let down by the overheating problem if you plan to leave it on for any length of time.

To sum up, the Luxon definitely has potential, but needs some work on the cooling.