Introduction:

Eagle Tech is accelerating its presence in the U.S. market by launching new product in rapid successions. Looking at its website more new products covering power supplies, ATX, HTPC and server cases, and HDD enclosures products are beginning to surface.
At [M] we have the pleasure in the first hand look of three 3 external enclosures from Eagle Tech in the past couple of months. Today, once again, we will take another good look at the W-Series, aluminum 3.5" single drive enclosure providing both PATA and SATA connections via USB connectivity.

Newegg seems to carry a full line of Eagle Tech products. At $26.99, the W-series is priced quite competitively.




My sample came in undamaged as like the past three samples from FedEx.




Package Contents:

• 3.5" Alum Enclosure
  
• Driver CD
  
• Manual
  
• Power Supply
  
• USB cable

The W-Series has vent holes run along side the case for added ventilation

Let's look into the installation process next ->

Installation:

Eagle Tech Consus M-series reviewed here previously has an excellent HDD installation design while the T-series required a little more work.

The W-Series here still requires the use of a Phillips head screw driver to unscrew the two screws securing the HDD metal tray located at the rear of the enclosure. But, it should be a "no-brainer", right?

Once again, the multicolor manual has excellent photo illustrations and easy to follow installation steps.





The screws were easy to remove; nothing stripped this time. However, I found it difficult to slide the tray out because there is nothing to get a grib on, and it is quite a tight fit. I use a jewel driver and work it from the edge to get it loose.



Once I got it to slide out a bit, I was stuck. This time, we "man" who don't read the manual thinking we know it all was the problem. The two 2-pin connectors must be unplugged for the tray to slide out.



A packet containing 4-pin to SATA cable and 5 HDD mounting screws is taped onto the tray. Since I am gping to use the Seagate 500GB SATA HDD, I removed the IDE connector and the existing 4-pin to PATA cable pre-installed from the factory, and plug in the power to SATA cable.



I love SATA cable, it is easy to install, and looks better than the old 80-pin flat IDE cable. After you broke a couple of SATA HDD and board connectors, you are going to pay hell a lot more attention every time as I did. The SATA cable here is way too short. My blood pressure rises as I try to bend the cable a bit to make the connection.


You see what I am trying to tell you here. :)





It is not over. I could not slide the tray back in, because the cable is not bend far enough to clear. After I unscrew the 4 HDD screws, push the HDD further from the connection still connected; I "massage" the cable a bit (lack of better term for this) it finally went in. If only you could read my lips :), this has got to be worked on.

Setup & Performance next ->

System Setup

• Intel E2140 from Geeks Computer Parts
  
• ASRock ConRoe-1333 DVI/H mainboard
  
• G.Skill 2x1GB PC6400
  
• OCZ 420 Power Supply
  
• Seagate 500GB 7200.9 SATA HDD
  
• Windows XP Pro SP2

I also install a second Seagate 500GB 7200.09 SATA into the W-Series external enclosure so that we could compare the system HDD to the external.



Performance:

HD Tach version 3.0.4

SiSoftware Sandra Lite XI

Read/Write using 2.71GB data & Mpeg-2



Screen shot shows both USB & system hard drives


Click to enlarge

HDTach shows Eagle Tech USB enclosure average 34.8MB/s versus sytem HDD average 50.1MB/s


Click to enlarge

Sandra shows Eagle Tech USB enclosure 33MB/s versus system HDD 59MB/s





Conclusive Thoughts:

As external HDD enclosures are getting popular because the ease of use and the increasing demand for HDD capacity, the market is saturated with them. In a nut shell, you could either buy one that is fitted with pre-installed HDD or one that you install your own HDD. The former is likely "sealed" and cannot be opened or the warranty is voided once opened. Yet, it has the convenience of "ready made, plug & play". The latter allows the users to reuse one of the older/smaller extra HDD available after system upgrade; or buy new one with 3 to 5 years warranty and with choice of your favorite HDD brand. Either way, the bottom line performance as far as read/write speed depends on the HDD more so than the enclosure of identical connectivity.

Ease of installation becomes the main feature when shopping for external enclosure, even for the geeks. :) I like the Eagle Tech M-Series SATA version, simply slide in the HDD, close the lid and you are done. The T-Series has more screws to deal with, but no big deal, while the W-Series we look at today is slightly different. For PATA drive, it presents no problem; but for SATA the cable is too short. too stiff.

The aluminum casing weights less and might improve thermal transfer a little better but not by much. Nevertheless, breaking the SATA connection on the HDD is very easy, something you don't want to have. However, if Eagle Tech would consider fixing this issue, the M-Series should be considered.

Pros:

Decent price point

Alum casing

Only 2 screws to deal with (plus the HDD mounting)

Stand is built into the casing

Cons:

SATA connection & position