Thermaltake Vi-on 2.5” SATA HDD USB Enclosure Reviewed

Our digital world is all about storage really, if you think about, all of our stuff is just little bits of data stuck somewhere, be it on a hard disc, USB drive or memory card, it’s just there and it’s really intangible. That storage though is limited, so we’re always trying to find a way to increase our storage capabilities, and allow us to store and take more stuff with us. One great way to do this is of course with a flash drive, but unless you’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars for one of the larger capacity ones out there, you’re kinda stuck with the old fashioned spinning hard drive which is much cheaper per gigabyte than any other storage medium out there today. Now of course being a portable society we also don’t want to be carrying around a large 3.5” hard drive, so the other option is to go smaller, down to a laptop HDD or a 2.5” hard drive. You could purchase a pre-built portable hard drive with the drive included, but normally those come at a premium price, it’s usually much cheaper to jut buy the HDD and the enclosure separately, but which one should you buy, you’ve got many choices out there when it comes to enclosures, and not all are created equal.

Today for review I’ve got the Thermaltake Vi-on hard drive enclosure, it’s specifically made for 2.5” HDDs and it uses the standard USB interface to transfer your data to and from the enclosure. The Vi-on is nicely made of a combination of plastic and a metal mesh to help keep things cool. One of the great features of this product is that it’s completely tool free, meaning installation is very easy, no tools are required. So read on to learn more about a nice option for your portable storage needs…

Info:

Thermaltake Vi-on 2.5” SATA HDD USB Enclosure

With huge amount of digital data that are available today in our every day life, storaging them has been made very simple thanks to continuing price drop in larger capacity hard drives. However, storaging hard drive itself has not really improved much until now. Designed to standout, VI-ON’s unique structural design along with eccentric metal mesh makes it visually pleasing to be placed almost anywhere. Its miniature size makes it extremely easy to be carried around so you’ll have the data or media where you need it and when you need it. After all, it is an external mobile enclosure.

Enclosure Interface: Hi-Speed USB 2.0

Transfer Rate: Up to 480 MBps

HDD Compatible: SATA I & SATA II

HDD Capacity: 2.5″ SATA HDD upto 500GB

OS Compatible: Windows XP & Vista / Mac OS 9.04+

Material: ABS Plastic / Metal Mesh

Dimension: 135 (L) x 88 (W) x 25 (H) mm / 5.31 (L) x 3.46 (W) x 0.98 (H)in

Accessory:

-Hi-Speed 2.0 Y-Cable

-Dust Cloth

Weight: 120 g

Special Features: All-around metal mesh opening provides unobstructed airflow intake to achieve noise-less convection cooling to increase data integrity and prevent drive failure.

Price: $29.99

What’s in the box?:

The package is nicely done, we all know that product packaging plays an important role in selling any product, and Thermaltake has come up with a nice design for the Vi-on. It includes pictures of the product along with specs and features listed as well.

Inside of the box we find the enclosure itself with a protective film on it, along with a cleaning cloth, user manual and a ‘Y’ USB cable as well. The ‘Y’ USB cable is to provide additional power if needed via another USB port so you won’t have to have a separate power supply as some drives might require.

The Vi-on I received for review is black, but you can also get it in all white as well. It’s a mix of plastic and metal, the top and bottom are plastic while the sides are a metal mesh to help keep the drive cool. On the back is where you’ll find a USB connector and there’s even an additional power adapter connection there.

Installation, Performance and Comparison:

No tool are required to use the Vi-on, the top just pops off and on, but it is secure. On the top and bottom there is a black plastic that is stuck very well, peeling it back a little reveals that there is actually padding underneath it to help protect the drive from shocks. Inside you’ll also find the circuit board with the SATA power and data connections.

Installing the hard drive inside of the Vi-on is very easy, it gets inserted at an angle and pushed in to go flat, it reminds me of installing ram in a notebook really, works the same way. I’m using a 500GB 5400RPM drive with it.

Before I got the Vi-on I was using the 500gb drive with an Eagle Consus M-Series Mesh Enclosure, so that’s what I’ll be comparing it to.

The Thermaltake Vi-on does have a small blue LED on the back near the USB port that is solid for power and will blink when accessing the drive.

First up is testing using SiSoft Sandra 2009 SP4 Removable Storage Benchmark:

Combined Device Index: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the average of the Combined Index figures over the four file sizes. (Higher is better, i.e. better performance)

Endurance Factor: is a figure representing the Wear and Life Expectancy of flash devices; this is obtained by dividing the average performance (normal condition, i.e. sequential write) to the lowest performance (high-stress condition, i.e. same block re-write).

It measures the relative improvement of endurance caused by the wear leveling or flash management algorithm; the absolute endurance of a device (i.e. its expected life-time) is directly dependent, in addition to this Endurance Factor, on the nominal manufacturer rating of maximum erase/reprogram cycles, which is typically 100,000+ for SLC and 10,000+ for MLC devices. (Higher is better, i.e. longer life-time for the device)

According to Sandra the Vi-on doesn’t fair very well against the Consus, though the Endurance Factor is a bit higher with the Vi-on and that has to be relative to the chipset being used for the transfers and how it handles them. My experience with Sandra has shown me that between 9 and 11,000 is about average for most external USB enclosures, so really the Vi-on is on the lower end of average in terms of performance.

The next test I’m running is using DiskBench. I like this test because it gives me real time reults and it also tells me the transfer speeds as well. I used the Windows 8 .ISO file weighing in at about 3.15GB for the tests. I ran the Copy to or write test and the Copy From test as well, since these are the most common uses of the drive.

First up is the time it took to accomplish the tasks, this is in seconds so a lower score is better.

We’ve got approximately three seconds difference for the Copy From test and about two seconds for the Copy To of write test, that’s not bad really. A couple seconds extra isn’t much at all.

Here’s the actual transfer rates for those tests, higher is better of course.

We can see why the Vi-on lagged behind a bit, the transfer rates are a bit slower, but still a couple seconds is no big deal, at least to me.

It’s not a bad product overall, but one small complaint I could have is that there isn’t a protective case included with it. It is nice looking with that high gloss finish to it, it will be ashame to have it all scratched up. Another small complaint could be pertaining to that high gloss finish, it really picks up dust and fingerprints, just handling it a few times get it funky looking and you’ll need to wipe it clean with the included cloth.

Conclusion:

The Thermaltake Vi-on 2.5” HDD enclosure is a decent product overall, it should provide good protection for the hard drive inside and it should keep it cool as well.

I really like the fact that it requires no tools for installation, all of the other enclosures I’ve taken a look at have tiny little screws that are needed for the installation of the drive and to secure the case together. The Vi-on just snaps shut, and stays shut, no screws to lose, and no digging around for a screwdriver to fit the tiny screws either.

As mentioned there is no case and the gloss finish does attract dust and easily picks up fingerprints, a case would have been nice for this enclosure for further protection and to keep it looking nice.

Pros:

+Well made

+Decent speeds

+Accepts large capacity drive

+Easy installation, no tools required

+Seems to keep drive cool

+Should prove good protection for the drive inside

Cons:

-No case included

-Gloss finish picks up dust and fingerprints

-A bit large compared to other enclosures

I would like to thank Thermaltake for the chance to review the Vi-on 2.5” HDD Enclosure and for their support of iGadget Life