| SilverStone Treasure TS07 USB 3.0 Enclosure |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Storage | |
| Written by Marc Fruchtman | |
| Wednesday, 12 October 2011 | |
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Page 8 of 8
SilverStone TS07 Final Thoughts and ConclusionsIMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. The author's experience with the product may differ significantly from your own. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. One of the most important things about using a portable system is that it should work, simply and easily. And without having to install any extra drivers. The SilverStone TS07 performed flawlessly during its testing. I never had to worry about installing any additional drivers to get it to work. I liked the SilverStone's overall appearance and combination of black anodized aluminum and glossy black plastic. However the fact this enclosure does not include a 2.5” drive adapter and requires the purchase of this adapter to use the very common 2.5” SSD should be noted. The Supplied USB cable is not quite long enough for your typical desktop user especially because most USB 3.0 ports are still at the back of the computer.
Additionally, several 2.5” enclosures are capable of powering the SSD via the USB port alone. Yet, the SilverStone was unable to do this. Therefore, it requires an 12VDC adapter at all times, reducing potential portability. One could make the argument that the primary focus of this USB Enclosure is larger 3.5” mechanical drives. Adding 2.5” capability will broaden its appeal. The case itself has no fan to ventilate the internal drive. If the focus of this enclosure is in fact the 3.5” mechanical drives, then clearly a fan would be helpful especially because many of the older 3.5” mechanical drives run hot. Overall, performance was at least as good as other USB 3.0 units I have seen. The newer asmedia ASM1051E performs slightly better than its older version. The unit tested without any hiccups. All the drives were recognized using the Windows 7 64-bit OS. Testing was not performed for any other operating systems. It is important to note that the negatives and the positives listed here may not be the same as your own. For example, I am disheartened that the packaging advertises 5Gbit/s USB 3.0 but clearly, the device is limited to around 234MB/s based on the benchmarks. So, I am deducting some points for this. Some people may be content with those scores knowing that they are quite good for a USB 3.0 enclosure. My preference is to be more conservative in advertising, and care should be taken to make sure that the purchaser is getting the rated speed of the drive not the theoretical rating of the bus or interface. Each plus or minus listed should be measured by your own personal meter, and then you can decide if this case is worth your money. Overall, for a USB 3.0 Enclosure specifically for 3.5” drives, $39.99 (NewEgg) is a fair deal. Pros:
+ Solid Construction. Cons:
- USB cord not long enough for most desktop installs. Ratings:
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10.Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum .
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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 ?