Conclusion:
Vizo continues to impress me with their line-up of products. I am beginning to expect great peripherals from them for years to come based on my introduction to three of their current offerings. The Luxon has a nice look to it and is well constructed with the outer metal shell being a single piece. This hard drive enclosure allows you to use a current IDE hard drive, and upgrade it to a SATA drive in the future. The inclusion of both SATA and USB ports is another great option, with SATA quickly becoming more common, having USB insures ultimate portability.
The Vizo Luxon is near perfect, and if it wasn't for the lack of SATA 3 GB/s and eSATA support, I might say it was. SATA 3 GB/s is becoming the standard for hard drives, and obviously offers higher transfer speeds than IDE or SATA 1.5 GB/s. I've also seen new motherboards come with integrated eSATA ports, so support for both eSATA and SATA would be great. If neither of those issues is a concern for you, then this is a great enclosure. I will have it in use for a long time.
A search of PriceGrabber did not return any results, however I would expect that this unit will be for sale in the $30-$45 range. If it is this price, it would be in line with other enclosures offering similar features.
Given the performance, configuration options, and easy installation, I award the Vizo Luxon 3.5" IDE/SATA Hard Drive Enclosure a final rating of "Recommended".
Pros:
» Support IDE and SATA
» Easy installation
» Quiet Operation
» Fast transfer speeds
Cons:
» Not eSATA
» Short USB and SATA cables
» No SATA 3.0 GB/s support
» Drive ran slightly warmer than in other enclosures
Special thanks to Vizo Technology Corp for providing the Vizo Luxon 3.5" IDE/SATA Hard Drive Enclosure to Bigbruin.com for review!
Please drop by the Bigbruin.com Forum and feel free to post any comments or questions.
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