In keeping with the digital lifestyle, we keep a lot of multimedia on our computers. The megapixel count on our digital cameras is quickly increasing and, as a result, so the are the file sizes of the resulting images. The same can be said about all the digital camcorders infiltrating the market, as well as downloaded movies, music, and games. All of these files take up a heck of a lot of space, and especially when it comes to family photos and videos, we don’t want to lose them. Having a reliable backup solution becomes absolutely paramount, because — unfortunately — computers are known to fail for a number of reasons. You don’t want your laptop to suddenly crash and burn, losing all of those vacation pictures you’ve accumulated over the years.
Sure, you could back up that data onto a series of blank DVD discs, but those are only a few gigs in size. It doesn’t take much to fill up a disc, so it’s probably a better option to look at online storage or, alternatively, a reliable external hard drive, particularly one with loads of space. The NexStar MX external hard drive enclosure from Vantec sounds it fits the bill, because it houses two drives instead of just one. And each of these drives can be up to one terabyte in space, effectively giving you enough room to backup a full 2TB of photos, music, videos, documents, and whatever else you want to store. Most importantly, it looks great doing it too!
Specifications and Features
The biggest selling point of the NexStar MX Dual 3.5-inch SATA HDD enclosure is the very fact that it can house a pair of hard drives, but that’s not the only thing going for it. Here’s a quick rundown of the key specifications and features.
- Supports two SATA I/II hard drives for up to 2TB of total storage
- USB 2.0 external interface
- Up to 480Mbps transfer speed
- Front ventilation and rear fan for active air circulation and cooling
- 3.5-inch Serial ATA hard drives supported
- Dimensions: 197x123x72mm
- Plastic and aluminum alloy construction
- Three LED indicator lights
- Free ArcSoft TotalMedia Backup software
I’d hate to nitpick, but I must. Where is the eSATA and or Firewire connections?
Inside The Box…
As you may have noticed, the NexStar MX does not actually come with any hard drives of its own. It is simply an enclosure and you’ll need to provide those beautiful 3.5-inch spinning platters on your own. For the purposes of this review, I used a pair of SATA 250GB Seagate Barracudas. My impression of the hard drive enclosure may be a little colored by this choice, but I’d imagine that the user experience will be pretty similar so long as you use a hard drive from a respectable company. What you do get inside the box is your usual smattering of manuals, screws, power adapter, software and even a USB cable.
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Initial Impressions
I’ve got to tell you, I love the way that the NexStar MX Dual Hard Drive Enclosure looks. The main body is wrapped in a black brushed aluminum and then on the front, you find a silver plate with the LED indicators, flanked by a series of recessed vents. The light at the top is to indicate power, whereas the two LEDs underneath that correspond to each of the two hard drives. They have a faint green glow to them normally, but when data is being accessed, they start to blink a rather brilliant blue. It’s simple, but very attractive.
Around the back, they’ve managed to keep things pretty basic. It’s not brushed aluminum, but the quality of the matte black plastic appears to be quite good. The choice of black screws is also good, adding to the clean and sleek appearance of this enclosure. Near the top, there is the DC power input and the USB 2.0 port. The power switch sits in the center and then there is a small fan near the bottom.
As great as it looks, there is one minor flaw that jumped out at me. I’m not sure if you can tell from the picture provided below, but the power switch is slightly off-kilter. This is a minor manufacturing defect that probably isn’t found in every unit shipped, but these tiny imperfections make the enclosure look, well, less than perfect.
The construction of the enclosure is definitely very solid, but it is surprisingly lightweight. It is only after you install a couple of hard drives that the portable gadget gains a fair bit of weight. Overall, I’m very happy with the general design, particularly with the vents in the front and the fan in the back. This makes for excellent airflow, which should help to keep the hard drive temperature within a reasonable range. A couple of one terabyte drives, which it does support, can get pretty hot.
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Installation and Setup
Seriously, the installation and setup of the NexStar MX dual hard drive enclosure is dummy-proof. There is no trick, no complication, nothing strange to worry about. Looking around to the back of the drive, you’ll find four small screws securing the external aluminum sleeve onto the main body. Remove these screws and slide off the sleeve. Your 3.5-inch SATA hard drives slide into place and get secured by four screws each (two on either side). Slide the cover back on, put the four securing screws back in place, and you’re pretty much ready to roll.
If only it were that easy. It almost is, but I ran into a couple of hiccups during the setup period. First, the four screws holding the sleeve in place were a little tricky and I think that the threading wasn’t up to spec. The bottom two screws came out fine, but the top two just kept spinning without getting any looser. It took a bit of a wobble and a shake to get them out. This is unnecessarily frustrating and could be solved with slightly better build quality.
The second hiccup came when it came time to initiate and format the new hard drives. When I plugged the enclosure into my desktop computer (via USB 2.0), the Windows XP Pro-powered machine told me that this USB device was “not recognized.” Surfing through the web, I found that I wasn’t the only one with this problem. However, when I plugged the external hard drive into my laptop (XP Home), it recognized it fine and I was able to do the formatting through the Windows Disk Management tool.
These were relatively minor issues, but they could prove problematic for any novices in the audience since not everyone refers to the power of Google as they are expecting that information in the manual. Thankfully, drivers are not really needed because the enclosure is plug-and-play otherwise.
The Secret Switch…Not Really…
I should also note that on the inside, you’ll find a small switch for activating JBOD mode. If you are in JBOD mode, your computer will recognize the two hard drives as a single volume. Switch off JBOD mode and the two drives will appear as separate volumes. Different strokes for different folks, but the automated JBOD mode makes this easier for beginners. It’s like one massive hard drive, instead of two smaller ones.
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Interface and Data Speeds
With a great appearance and a relatively simple setup process, it should come as little surprise that the user interface on the NexStar MX is ridiculously straightforward as well. As you’d imagine, the drive shows up as an external volume in “My Computer”, allowing you to drag and drop files as you would to any folder on your internal hard drive. This sounds fine and dandy, but you have to remember that you are restricted only to a USB 2.0 connection. For larger files, it would have been nice to enjoy eSATA or Firewire. Given that it is supposed to support up to 2TB, the enclosure should have come with either or both of these additional options.
So, how does this stack up in terms of speed? Here’s the benchmark from HD Tune.
This data is based on the two aforementioned Seagate Barracuda drives operating in JBOD mode. Your mileage will vary according to the drives you select, so transfer rates may improve with faster drives. Even so, you’re probably getting bottlenecked by the USB 2.0 interface as shown by the flatline on the graph.
Conclusion: Oh, So Close!
For the average consumer, the Vantec NexStar MX Dual Hard Drive Enclosure is a solid option for a number of a reasons. I love the choice of materials and the overall appearance is professional, yet chic at the same time. The cool black brushed aluminum body is a definite step up over its plastic counterparts and I’d imagine that the aluminum probably helps with cooling as well. It’s also great to see an active cooling system in place, especially with the small fan in the back drawing air from the vents in the front.
Having dual hard drives is also a huge plus for those looking to expand. You can easily grab one of these enclosures today, plop in a single 500GB or 1TB hard drive, and only add a second when the need arises. The option of using JBOD is a plus, simply because it makes navigation a little easier, but power users will probably stick to single drive mode. The included ArcSoft TotalMedia Backup software is a bonus, allowing for scheduled automatic backups of your entire system or specific folders.
All this said, the NexStar MX is not without its faults. Even though it is a dual hard drive enclosure, there are no additional RAID options for redundancy and mirroring. This is a feature that I greatly appreciate on network enclosures like the Synology DiskStation DS207+. It’s also unfortunate that while the NexStar MX supports drives up to 1TB in size, we’re left with just a USB 2.0 interface. Where’s the eSATA or Firewire?
The Vantec NexStar MX Dual Hard Drive Enclosure is a nice product, but it needs to address these two key issues before making it into the upper echelons of external enclosures.
Pros
- Great aluminum construction, looks stunning
- Dual hard drive bays, including JBOD mode
- Dummy-proof setup and installation
- Bonus automatic backup software
- Active cooling is a great idea
Cons
- Lack of redundancy, additional RAID modes
- No Firewire or eSATA options
- Fan can be a little noisy
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