Fortysomething Geek

25ドル on Amazon. This was a pretty good deal and I have been having some problems with my other SATA docks lately so I took a chance with this one. This is the Plugable Communicator U3 USB 3.0 dock and it comes in white.

It has all the right specs: ASMedia 1051E and the latest firmware with USB Attached SCSI support (UASP) enabled.

Here is how it shows up on system profiler.


The speed is pretty amazingly fast.

First, here is is witha 3TB Seagate 7200 Barracuda spinning hard drive. That is close to internal storage.


A newer Crucial M500 240GB SSD. 430 MB/sec reads!



On an older Samsung 830 SSD.

Amazon Link:
http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Docking-Station-ASMedia-Chipset/dp/B003UI62AG

I decided to upgrade my Drobo 5D; replacing all five 3TB Seagates with five new 4TB Seagates.




I now have 14.5 TB of real useable space; using 4 Terabyte drives. I offloaded my 4 month old 3TB drives into a cheap 4 bay eSATA RAID box. That right there is another 9TB to play with under RAID5.

This is a short review of the tool-less 2.5" combo eSATA / USB 3.0 enclosure.
These currently retail for 28ドル on Amazon.

I needed something that could easily swap out drives without hassle. The enclosure fits 2.5 drives up to 12.5mm in thickness. eSATA is capped at 3Gbps and the USB controller is an ASMedia 2105.

There is no installation or screw. This is a clever tool-less design that allows you to popu-up your 2.5" drive. The spring mechanism takes up some space so this is definitely not a small enclosure. It is well built and made from sturdy aluminum.






eSATA and USB 3.0 ports adorn the back. This is an USB 3.0 bus powered enclosure. eSATA requires power and you simply use the USB 3.0 cable for power. If both plugs are connected, eSATA takes precedent.




Performance, I was getting close to 200 MB/sec from a Samsung 830 SSD with USB 3.0. This is the typical USB 3.0 mid-range enclosure speed. eSATA is capped at 3GBbps.



I benchmarked the eSATA from my Thinkpad running Ubuntu 12.04. With eSATA, I was getting 220-230 MB/sec.




With standard HDD, your speeds will be much slower.

Conclusion. Overall, it is a decent enclosure that is extremely flexible. The quick-release is a nice touch.


Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/2-5-Inch-External-Enclosure-Tool-free-Installation/dp/B005B5G4S6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364871328&sr=8-1

Ever since the floods of Thailand, I've been hoarding drives as they go on sale. Just for me, I probably have over 60TB of drives in various sizes. These 4TB Backup Plus drives were dirt cheap the other day on Amazon for 140ドル. 7200 rpm, SATA III 6Gbp/s and Thunderbolt upgrade-able.
These external drives usually cost much,much less than their internal counterparts. There are plenty of youtube videos on how to crack open these enclosures for you to use as internal drives.

I may just want to upgrade my Drobo 5D and replace all the 3TB drives.

People often ask me for an opinion on what hard drive to get. They need something simple, portable and good enough to carry their music collection.



My blog pretty much covers fast drive setups such as SSDs and Thunderbolt but for most people, they want something with more storage at a reasonable price.

My recommendation would be the portable Seagate Go-Flex hard drives.

They come in 5400 rpm so they aren't blazing fast but they offer great flexibility and they often go on sale. 1TB normally goes for 70ドル and can be as low as 60ドル (discounted at Target). Why do I like them?
Well, I like the detachable end-piece that allows me to connect drives to a variety of different computers.

Picture below is an illustration of what I mean.
You can get end piece connectors that swap out for any computer configuration.

• Firewire 800 adapter
• USB 3 & 2
• Thunderbolt
• and even eSATA

I have an old Mac Mini and FW800 is the way to go. Some of my PC's have USB 3 so the USB 3 adapter comes in handy. The end pieces are easy to replace and there are even 3rd party docks and adapters that work with the Go Flex drives. You can even park them in and convert them into NAS drives as well. The great thing about Go-Flex is that you can use the adapters on other 2.5" laptop drives. Hence, you don't have to worry about future proofing your investment.


I have 8 of these drives and so far, they work great for storing music and files.