Conclusion:
Either of these enclosures will work well in the field, and with the selection
Eagle Tech Computers offers, the end user should have no problem finding the best enclosure for the job. If you currently have an IDE drive available and realize that eventually you will migrate over to SATA, the T-Series Hybrid drive would be the best choice. However, if you are going to install a SATA hard drive, I really recommend looking to the future and purchasing an enclosure with eSATA. As the benchmarks showed, eSATA is clearly better than USB 2.0 for external hard drives.
The option of having either IDE or SATA hard drives on the T-Series Hybrid drive is a great feature. The transfer rates were what I would hope for, nearly maxing out the USB bus. The only concern I have with the T-Series Hybrid drive is how easily the SATA connection inside the enclosure can break. While installing a SATA hard drive for just the third time, I twisted the drive a bit, and the SATA data connection came loose. The SATA connection is no longer usable, however the IDE connection still works great.
In addition to the eSATA availability and performance, I was impressed with how easy it was to install the hard drive in the M-Series enclosure. I do have a concern that I could potentially lose the little key that comes with it, however if that was to happen, the security shouldn't be that difficult to bypass.
A search of
PriceGrabber shows the T-Series Hybrid enclosure selling for approximately $26.95 while the M-Series SATA to USB/eSATA is selling for $29.95. These are definitely reasonable prices for enclosures of this caliber.
For the
Eagle Technologies T-Series ET-CSTSIU2-BK enclosure I award the rating of "Recommended".
T-Series Hybrid Pros:
» IDE/SATA hard drive option
» LED illuminated base
» Good transfer speeds
» Supports drives up to 750GB
» USB 2.0 Connection
T-Series Hybrid Cons:
» No eSATA
» SATA connection easily broken
» Not tool-less
» No activity LED
For the
Eagle Technologies M-Series ET-CSMESU2-BK enclosure I award the rating of "Highly Recommended".
M-Series USB/eSATA Pros:
» Good transfer speeds
» Ease of tool-less installation
» USB 2.0 and eSATA connections
» Honey comb exterior for passive cooling
» Supports drives up to 750GB
M-Series USB/eSATA Cons:
» No activity LED
Special thanks to
Eagle Tech Computers for providing the Eagle Tech Computers External Hard Drive Enclosures to Bigbruin.com for review!
