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200GB Seagate External USB2.0 Drive Combo |
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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Saturday, 16 June 2007 |
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Page 1 of 3
Thanks to eWaggle for the product sample.
Flash drives are getting bigger by the day. What were once jaw-dropping 1GB models that sold for no less than the best video cards of the day are now commonplace and can be had for under $100. Yet small as they are, these portable memory chips still don't offer the capacity needed to move big files or permanently store large amounts of data. The simplest solution is one which we're looking at today: taking a standard 3.5" drive of any brand and any capacity, and tossing it into an external high speed enclosure.
Our combo was a 200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 drive with a black version of the above pictured enclosure. eWaggle offers a ton of drives with varying capacities including Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, and IBM (yes, the old GXPs). I opted for Seagate due to their recent 5 year warranty announcement. Anyway, the combo came in a retail package as shown. There are two models available: black and silver. Other enclosures are also listed on the site.
Included in the package is the drive, the external case, a clear stand so you can situate the drive upright, a novice manual, two piece power adapter, FireWire cable, USB2.0 cable, and a driver CD which hopefully no one will have to use. As soon as I plugged in the case and flipped the switch Windows XP instantly detected it as a removable hard drive. Apparently it already comes pre-formatted using the NTFS file system.
The front of the case has ventilation holes for the dual fans behind. In the middle is a star shaped cutout for a tri-color LED. The back has a power switch, two FireWire ports, a USB2.0 port, and a power connector which resembles PS/2 plugs. Both 5V and 12V lines are necessary to power the HDD, the fans, and the circuitry. The case is comprised of an outer shell and an inner tray; they're held together by a pair of rather small screws. Once removed the inner tray slides out.
Popping the hood reveals our contestant: a gorgeous 200GB (186.31GB formatted) Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus hard drive (model ST3200822A). The rated 8.5ms average seek time is actually lower than Western Digital JB SE's 8.9ms. The top view shows a PCB with all the ports and tightly fit 4-pin molex connector. For once there's no 80-pin cable; instead the drive plugs directly into the circuit board. It's secured to the tray by four screws on the bottom; the PCB is held by two. At the very front is a pair of 40mm fans angled downwards to blow air across the bottom of the drive.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 16 June 2007 )
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