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Kingwin Night Hawk 3.5" SATA & USB 2.0
Combo
External Drive Enclosure Review
The Install:
With the box proudly stating tool-less install, I was
pleasantly surprised with the ease of opening the drive. The two
front feet are actually thumb screws. Once removed the drive opens
like a clamshell. Cables must be removed of course! It's
much easier to do than explain.
A closer look reveals the Chipset is placed upfront.
The fan is also placed under the chipset where the active cooling is
shared with the drive bay. Notice the padding on both the top and
bottom of the enclosure to secure and quiet the drive. The two
side posts are used to secure the hard drive in place correctly.
For testing I installed a brand new Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 9 80 gig SATA150 hard drive. In this picture the drive is
installed and the cables are all in place.
Testing:
The test system contains an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
motherboard running the latest version of Windows XP. The SATA
drivers are the latest Silicon Image Drivers provided By ASUS. The
USB drivers are provided by Windows as well. For external testing
I used a direct connection and also an ACRyan Backy rear external power
system. For all tests the Maxtor drive was the only SATA device
and USB device present.
For testing I used the latest version of HDTach 3.0
from
Simpli Software. Although these tests better assess the hard
drive performance, testing in the different configurations helps to show
the effect of the chipset and conversion. This picture shows the
performance using the SATA to USB conversion.
Next I attached the drive directly to the ASUS SATA
controller. The difference in speed is dramatic in showing the
advantage of SATA 150 over USB 2.0.
With the added ACRyan Backy interface there is a
slight drop in performance as well. Keep in mind we also added
another 2 feet of cable to the loop. If you don't have an external
SATA port, and who does, an adapter like this will really shine with the
Night Hawk drive enclosure!
For comparison, here is the result of testing with the
Maxtor drive installed using a traditional SATA install. No need
to scroll up, the performance is identical to the external install
scores. Wow, external SATA is clearly superior to a USB 2.0
installation.
To get a second opinion I used
Sisoft's Saundra. The
results of the external SATA test are shown here. As you can see,
the performance is consistent with what we have seen so far.
Conclusion:
The Kingwin Night Hawk TL-35CS external drive provides
great performance on both the USB and SATA installs. Though
external SATA is not very common, the ability to use your high speed SATA
150 drives externally makes this drive a performance dream. The
Stealthy design may not be flashy but it looks great next to my black XION case. Kingwin has been making quality external enclosures for
a while and the simple, durable quality shows in the fit and finish as
well. If you are looking for a SATA external enclosure, this drive
will give you the USB compatibility you need and the SATA performance
you have been wishing for. Did I mention these enclosures are only
about $35.00?
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Club
Overclocker Rating |
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Innovation: |
9.5
out of 10 |
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Performance: |
10 out of 10 |
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Quality: |
9.5
out of 10 |
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Stability: |
N/A |
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Overclocking: |
N/A |
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Software/Drivers Pack: |
N/A |
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Value: |
9.5 out of 10 |
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Overall Rating
9..5 |
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Skill Level |
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Project Skill Level
(10 being hardest) |
2
out of 10 |
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