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Luxon Advanced ED Hard Drive Enclosure Conclusion
Submitted by jwhitakr on Wed, 12/12/2007 - 19:09.
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Performance
When attached to USB 2.0, the drive transfers data at a rate of 480Mbps, which is pretty fast; fast enough to watch standard MPEG video or play any MP3 music and even to record video from TV rather dependably. However, when attached to an eSATA port the drive comes alive with great speed allowing up to 3.0Gbps transfer rate if the hard drive installed is SATA II capable. This opens the door for HD video recording and editing as well as multi-channel audio recording and many other such disk intensive tasks.
I was able to transfer an 18 minute AVHCD video to the drive from my HDD camcorder (with the drive attached to eSATA and the camcorder attached to USB 2.0) in just a few seconds. While editing the video I was able to view real time changes in standard quality during previews using Sony Vegas 8.0. The only process that took any length of time was rendering the video - which always takes a very long time with HD video.
The entire video editing process was done with the drive attached to the eSATA port including all the media files being used for editing (digital audio, HD video and photographs) which were stored on the external drive as well.
I should mention, as a matter of course, that you can not attach the drive to a computer using both connections at once; nor can you attach the drive to two different computers using the two different connections. If you wish the drive to be accessible from more than one computer you should network the computers and share the drive over the network.
Heat Considerations
When talking about external hard drive enclosures people always consider heat as a factor of not only performance, but the longevity of the installed hard drive. Well, the heat emitted from the enclosure with my 1TB Hitachi hard drive is actually less than many other enclosures I have used in the past. The casing is slightly warm to the touch but this can be deceiving so how can you tell what the actual temperature is?
My motherboard has built in sensors for detecting the temperature of the primary hard drive. It is only a simple matter of removing the wire and placing it into the internal casing and taping it to the drive to get an accurate temperature reading. I was surprised to see the temperature was about the same as my primary drive, which is inside my PC with two 90mm fans to cool it. The actual operating temperature after being on for hours and while under load was a cool 40ºC. My internal drive operates at the same load at 38ºC and I have had it for over three years, so I believe the longevity of my installed 1TB drive will be a good three to five years or better.
VIZO Luxon Advanced ED Hard Disk Enclosure
There are really no critical issues that consumers will run into with this enclosure. I should note that the included USB and eSATA cables are rather short which means that the enclosure must be set on top of or directly next to the computer it is plugged into. Over than these issues, the Luxon Advanced ED is a solid choice for an external hard drive enclosure.
Pros: USB and eSATA connectivity, supports 1TB hard drives, stays cool.
Cons: Short eSATA and USB cables included.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
