These days everyone seems to have an external storage drive of some sort.  Whether you have a USB drive or a NAS enclosure, we all have the same desire: More speed and more space.  But I don't want to take out a second mortgage to get it!  Seagate may have found just the solution to your high speed storage needs.  Utilizing the latest eSATA technology, Seagate has produced what may be the fastest external storage drive to date.  And did I mention its a 500 GB drive as well?  Lets see just how fast this drive can go right here at the Club!

      Who doesn't love picking up a box and knowing you have half a terabyte just waiting to be spoiled rotten!  Seagate sure has our number down.  With the bold statement "Five times faster than FireWire and Hi-Speed USB"  the gauntlet has been thrown.

     The rest of the box is not afraid to suggest the many reasons you might like to have a eSATA 500 GB of your own.  It neglects my favorite reason to own a Seagate 500GB eSATA drive, because it exists.  With this much high speed storage, you can laundry list great reasons to own a portable drive that are all your own.

Opening the box for the first time we find the first layer consists of the many accessories provided. 

     Seagate has included a quick start guide, drivers disk,  the power supply cables, a stand to mount your drive vertical, an eSATA cable and the Promise eSATA 300 PCI card.  For the Promise eSATA card they have included installation instructions and a half height adapter for compatible cases.

     The next layer brings us to the Seagate eSATA 500 GB drive its self!  Although external drives are designed to take some occasional rough handling as part of being portable, Seagate has provided ample protection to insure things arrive intact.

     The drive enclosure is finished in a flat metallic silver with the Seagate logo in black on the top.  The actual drive measures 7.125" x6.5" x 2.25" and weighs in at 2 lb. 9.6 oz without the power brick.

     The bottom looks very similar but has an indentation to allow several of these drives to be stacked on top of each other.  This is a nice touch considering the included Promise card supports two devices and many aftermarket cards support many more.

The front of the enclosure is devoted to a single power button.  This button lights up in a blue light and doubles as a drive activity indicator.

     The back of the device is quite simplistic only two plug-ins.  The beauty of eSATA is the simple locking interface making it almost impossible to not get it right every time.