The number of hard drive enclosures with eSATA connections has increased greatly over the past year, thanks in no small part to the wider availability of these ports on motherboards, as well as the increased capacities and lower prices of SATA drives. We have reviewed several eSATA enclosures recently, and while they general fare well in testing, there seems to be a few common issues that pop up with these devices. The main issues that I have noticed is that some enclosures lack all of the hardware necessary to connect via eSATA, while others offer degraded drive performance as compared to a drive on a standard SATA connection.

Rosewill has provided an eSATA hard drive enclosure of their own for review, and I am hopeful that it addresses the issues that seem to be present on far too many other units. The Rosewill RX-358-S-SLV eSATA and USB hard drive enclosure can hold one 3.5" SATA hard drive inside a rather stylish aluminum and plastic shell, cooled by a 80mm fan.


Although it is a relatively young company, the number of offerings in the Rosewill product catalog has grown quickly. Cases, power supplies, monitors, coolers, and networking gear are just a few of the numerous products that can now be found with their name on them. If you are not familiar with the Rosewill brand, you may not be alone, but you merely need to browse the virtual shelves of their associated retailers, Newegg and Chief Value, in order to discover all that they have to offer.

Before taking a look at the RX-358-S-SLV eSATA and USB hard drive enclosure provided for review, let's take a look at some published data taken from the Rosewill website...

Features:

» Universal fitting for 3.5" SATA I / II HDD
» Complies with the USB 2.0 and eSATA Combo interface
» Power On/Off for internal cooling fan
» USB Supports Win 2000/ME/XP/VISTA, and Mac OS 9.x/10.x and above, Linux kernel after 2.4.1.0
» Power Adapter, 100-240 VAC(47Hz~63Hz), 12V/2A output
» Full Aluminum Cover, metal tray
» Dimension: (LxWxH) 193x125x45mm

Specifications:

» Model: RX-358-S-SLV
» Interface: eSATA+USB2.0
» USB specification: USB2.0 backward compatible with USB1.1
» SATA specification: SATAI/ SATAII max 3.0Gbps data transfer rate
» Plug and Play: Yes
» Vertical Stand: Black Plastic Stand
» Material: Aluminum with front and back ABS panel
» HDD Support: 3.5" SATA I / II
» HDD Space: Support up to 750GB
» System Support: Windows ME/ 2000 /XP/VISTA, Macintosh OS 9.X or higher, Linux 2.4.1.0 or above
» CE/FCC CE/FCC: Approved
» RoHS compliancy: RoHS Approved