AcomData E5 320GB External Desktop Storage: Slap on another
by Purav Sanghani on August 27, 2005 12:48 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
The AcomData E5’s Construction
AcomData has taken a regular consumer level hard disk drive, the Western Digital 320GB Caviar SE with 8MB of cache and 7200RPM spindle speed, and slapped it in a 3.5” external case with two methods of connectivity: USB and FireWire. Still, the E5 is not just that. If we were to look at external devices from a few years back, we would see the same off-white colored plastic cases with serial port connectivity and no other features, but the power connection and a few flashing LEDs.With the new generation of external devices come features such as PushButton™ Backup combined with software tailored to work with the drives to make backing up data as quick and painless as possible.
Click to enlarge.
The back panel features a red power switch at the top right corner of the device, which is obviously used to turn the device on and off. Below that to the left is the USB 2.0 port and below that port are two 6-pin FireWire 400 ports aligned vertically. With the dual FireWire ports, the E5 gives us the option of daisy chaining FireWire devices to it. For example, if we have two of these E5’s, all that is required is the connection between the first drive to the second by way of the FireWire cable. Now, if only we could RAID over FireWire!
The following 5 models are available from AcomData:
| Configurations for AcomData External Drives | |||||
| Model No. | Capacity | Rotational Speed | Cache (Buffer) | Seek Time (Read, typical) | Interface Transfer Rate |
| HD080UFAPE5-72 | 80 GB | 7200 RPM | 2 MB | 8.5 ms | USB 2.0: Up to 480 Mbps (60 Megabytes/s). FireWire 400: Up to 400 Mbps (50 Megabytes/s). |
| HD120UFAPE5-72 | 120 GB | 7200 RPM | 2 MB | 8.5 ms | |
| HD160UFAPE5-72 | 160 GB | 7200 RPM | 2 MB | 8.5 ms | |
| HD250UFAPE5-72 | 250 GB | 7200 RPM | 8 MB | 8.5 ms | |
| HD320UFAPE5-72 | 320 GB | 7200 RPM | 8 MB | 8.5 ms | |
As we see from the table, the E5 comes in a variety of flavors including USB, FireWire 400, USB/FireWire 400, and USB/FireWire 400/FireWire 800. Our test unit is a Combo A version, according to AcomData’s documentation, which is the USB/FireWire 400 version of the E5.
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Andyvan - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
That is exactly what I've been envisioning for several years.-- Andyvan
Ecmaster76 - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
With standardized external SATA devices on the horizon, I would advise wiating to buy unless you really need external storage right now.Any of you cool dudes at Anandtech know how soon we can expect a wide selection of external SATA?
psychobriggsy - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
You can already buy external SATA enclosures. When I was looking for mine, I saw SATA versions of the IcyBox for example, and the price was pretty much the same in fact.UltraWide - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
I got a 320GB version on firewire through my audigy2 and it's excellent. it's fast, quiet and runs very cool.psychobriggsy - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
Earlier this month I bought a 200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 (the silent IDE version) and an IcyBox external Firewire/USB2 enclosure (the one with the blue lighting). That worked out a lot cheaper than buying something pre-made like this. It too has a Firewire passthrough.The price? £80 in total. Which is around $125 after you take tax off the UK price.
It's been coupled with my iBook, which only has a 40GB 4200 RPM hard drive. It's a handy backup solution, and I store all my media file on it as well. I plan to get a Mac Mini at some point in the future to which it will be permanently attached. The combination can then serve music to a SqueezeBox2 or similar, once I get one of those.
ElFenix - Monday, August 29, 2005 - link
i've had hit or miss experiences using do it yourself external drive kits. i *think* that the premade ones tend to have better chipsets inside. and the diy stuff doesn't come with the software. and sometimes the premade stuff is about the same cost (after rebates and sales) as diy.formulav8 - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
I wish I could talk my wife into letting me get that for her laptop. Her slow 60gb 4200 rpm drive is almost full. Oh well, she won't let that happen with that much money.Jason
Olaf van der Spek - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
> and the results of CPU load for the FireWire 400 interface surprised us even more, since it is pier-to-pier.What's a pier?
TheInvincibleMustard - Saturday, August 27, 2005 - link
Arr, matey ... that be when ye be shipping pirated medias between your two drives ... yar-har-harrrrrr.:-D