Testing:
To test the capabilities of the Eagle Tech Computers enclosures, I used a 400GB Western Digital SATA hard drive, model WD4000KS, in each. I connected each enclosure to my test system and used HD Tach 3.0.4.0 to benchmark the performance of the drive in the various configurations supported by each enclosure.
First, I tested the Western Digital hard drive connected directly to my motherboard as an internal hard drive. The average Burst Speed was reported as 187.8MB/s, The Random Access time was 13.5ms, and the Average Read Speed was 49.1MB/s.
As shown in the chart below, the T-Series enclosure is capable of reaching a Burst Speed of 35.2 MB/s. Random Access Time was 13.7ms, while the average read speed was 34.8MB/s. While the Burst Speed may not be great as compared to a SATA connection, it is quite good for USB 2.0, and each of the other rates comes close to the speeds of connecting the drive directly to a SATA connection.
As expected, the M-Series enclosure's performance was comparable to the T-Series enclosure when connected via USB 2.0, but the M-Series enclosure did outperform the T-Series by a small margin. The Burst Speed was 37.5MB/s compared to the 35.2MB/s of the T-Series. The Random Access times were identical and the Average Read Speed differed by 0.1 MB/s.
The feature of interest on the M-Series enclosure is the inclusion of eSATA, which is really gaining in popularity. Here you can see the obvious reasons why it is becoming popular. While the eSATA performance does not match up to the SATA speeds, it does easily surpass the speed of USB 2.0. At 120.1MB/s, the Burst Speed is close to four times faster than USB 2.0. However the Random Access time was slightly less at 13.5ms. With the faster speed of eSATA, the Average Read Speeds were significantly faster at 49.1MB/s.
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