| SilverStone Treasure TS07 USB 3.0 Enclosure |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Storage | |
| Written by Marc Fruchtman | |
| Wednesday, 12 October 2011 | |
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Test Results: CrystalDiskMarkCrystalDiskMark 3.0 is a file transfer and operational bandwidth benchmark tool from Crystal Dew World that offers performance transfer speed results using sequential, 512KB random, and 4KB random samples. For our test results chart below, the 4KB 32-Queue Depth read and write performance was measured using a 1000MB space. CrystalDiskMark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested, and the S511 drive is formatted with NTFS. Benchmark Reviews uses CrystalDiskMark to illustrate operational IOPS performance with multiple threads. In addition to our other tests, this benchmark allows us to determine operational bandwidth under heavy load. Let's look at the CrystalDiskMark Scores:
This is the Highpoint RocketRAID 2720 with the ADATA S511. It is interesting to note that all scores above except the Seq Read actually matches closely or exceeds the scores of the same model drive using an Asus P8P67 here. This makes me feel a lot better about the RocketRaid 2720. However, I would be cautious in drawing any specific conclusions as they are not the same test bed. Nevertheless, we now have a very good idea of the upper limit of transfer speeds for the ADATA S511.
This is the ADATA S511 in the TS07 Enclosure using USB 3.0. This gives us a good idea of the upper limit of performance for the SilverStone enclosure.
This shows the ADATA N004 Nobility using the onboard USB 3.0 of the EVGA SR-2. Read performance is close to the ADATA S511 which suggests that the limit of either the bridge chip or the USB 3.0 interface itself is close to being reached. If I had access to another device that used something besides an asmedia based bridge chip, as well as a separate PCI-E USB 3.0 port, I think this could be solved.
This is the ADATA N004 Nobility using the SilverStone USB 3.0 Enclosure. If we recall, the N004 has an older asmedia chip, which allows the SSD's SATA II to bridge to the USB 3.0 port, where as the Silverstone has a newer version. So, we can test the N004 using its SATA II interface bridged to USB 3.0 in the SilverStone, and compare it to the N004 bridged internally to USB 3.0 using the older chip design. Performance of the N004 with the SATA II to USB 3.0 via the SilverStone TS07 is very slightly better than the N004's built-in USB 3.0, again suggesting that the older asmedia chip in the N004 slightly lags in performance compared to the newer chip in the SilverStone.
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Comments
Modern mechanical drives will soon reach over 200MB/s STR so this enclosure will be a bottleneck for new huge drives.
THanks for the review!
PS: Does it support drives larger than 2TB drives? I see a lot of enclosures on newegg that say they only support up to a 2TB drive, however I thought the only hardware limitation is LBA, and 48-bit LBA has been around for like 10 years now so all enclosures should support 48-bit LBA.
Maybe it's because of the microprocessor's internal firmware that some enclosures have this limitation.
Personally I prefer a hard drive dock/caddy so you can plug hard drives in and swap them out for other hard drives. Cost about the same too.
While a dock is very useful, it does not protect the drive.
Docks are great for SSDs and drives that are already protected.
Most 3.5" drives have exposed electronics, making it pretty useless for a dock.
I have found that my hard drives require basically zero added protection. I have bought a couple of $2 cases for them to use while they're not plugged in (thus offering just as much protection as an enclosure). This is vastly superior to having a single drive enclosure for every hard drive. Add to this that many cases now come with hot swap bays, and often I can just bring a hard drive to a client or friend and it will just plug into their system. It's also less expensive to just purchase another hard drive over another complete enclosure, and I don't have the added mess of multiple power supplies and multiple USB cables. It's way easier to pull a hard drive and plug another in compared to having to pull out another enclosure and power brick and plug them in.
It's FAR from useless for 3.5" drives.
I am not sure I understand your $2 cover idea...
Your removing the cover when you plug them in?
I don't think that is a very good idea for "Most Users".
Its fair to say, that it is useful to have a docking station for hard drives that are protected. If you can get $2 covers for your hard drives that also work during docking, then a docking station does make good sense. Otherwise, its just a failure waiting to happen for the "average user". Perhaps you are willing to take that risk.
The ease of use of a docking station with "protected" drives is apparent.
Your situation applies to a very small segment of people who happen to have hot swap bays. For the general population who don't even open their cases, a USB enclosure makes a lot of sense.
I would even say HD "Enclosure" with a docking station makes sense.
But a bare drive, that you need to expose and dock... really ?