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External HDD case review: Revoltec Alu Book II |
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Written by Stuyo
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Friday, 25 July 2008 |
Page 3 of 4
Page 3 - Assembly, testing
Putting a disk in the Revoltec Alu Book II is quite fast and easy – all you need to do is pull the mounting sled, put in the disk (he is well fitted to the SATA connectors, that have small clamps), to tighten in the supplied screws, slide the whole thing back in the case, while not forgetting to switch on the back light led and screw the sled tight to prevent accidental opening:
For ourt tests we used these disks:
- Western Digital Raptor 360ADFD, 10k rpm, SATA 1
- Maxtor 6V250F0, 7200 rpm, SATA 2
For speed tests we used the free version of HDD Tach. And here's what we've got:
Speed inside plain computer case:
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Speed with Alu Book II through USB 2.0:
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Speed with Alu Book II through eSATA:
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As the results clearly show not much is to be expected from the USB 2.0 (not that we did, though this is still a tad puzzling result). While with eSATA the case performs excellent, almost as with standard SATA сconnectivity inside the computer case. Surely the 10 000 RPM of the Raptor, were quite helpful, pushing if further despite its slower SATA 1 interfaceе.
In the tests we used both the motherboard integrated eSATA interface and the one provided by the case adapter. With both the speed was identical, though with the integrated eSATA we had a bit of a trouble – the motherboard couldn't find boot device, so we couldn't boot the OS through it, but that's a motherboard issue.
Another important parameter we tested was the hard drive temperature, inside computer case with good air flow and in Alu Book II. So this is what we measured:
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Tests were made at 23°C room temperature, yet we must also note that since it's summer the temperatures got as high as 48°C. At this situation the case was evenly warm (and rather warm) which is a clear indication that at least as a radiator it does perform well, though the lack of active cooling is noticeable and Alu Book II can't stand toe to toe with its fan bearing brethren.
As for the noise and vibrations, this Revoltec child did good – it managed to silence the hard drive quite well and did completely cut out any vibrations.
