Testing:

To test the Ineo I-NA215U Plus USB 3.0 hard drive enclosure, it was connected to a system with built-in support for USB 3.0. It was tested against other USB 3.0 devices, including a MUKii 3.5" U3 enclosure, Thermaltake's BlacX 5G hard drive dock, and Seagate's Black Armor PS110 USB 3.0 external drive. The same hard drive will be installed in the Ineo I-NA215U, MUKii U3, and the Thermaltake BlacX 5G; a 320GB Hitachi 7200RPM 2.5" unit.

The following tests will be executed on each configuration to gauge its performance:

» Real World Transfers
» CrystalDiskMark 2.2

Real World Transfers:

To analyze the real world performance, two tests were executed. Small file testing involved transferring one folder containing 5GB of MP3 files, and large file testing involved transferring a single 4.7GB ISO file. The first test involved transferring those files from the host system to the drive being tested. The second test involved reading those same files back to a different location on the host system. The speeds were timed with a stopwatch, which was started when the mouse button was released to copy the files to the hard drive. Faster is better for these tests.

When writing large files to the test drives, the Ineo enclosure took just 1 second longer to write the files then the MUKii enclosure, and it was 1 second faster than the Seagate Black Armor PS110 hard drive. Very small differences in speeds for transferring a single large ISO.



When writing small files to the test drives, MUKii's 2.5" U3 once again was faster by 1 second, but this time Ineo's enclosure was 3 seconds faster than Seagate unit.



When reading large files from the test drives, the Ineo unit was 1 second slower than the MUKii U3 enclosure and 2 seconds faster than Seagates Black Armor PS110.



When copying the MP3 files back to the host system, we get the first instance that there was more than 1 second difference between MUKii's 2.5" U3 and Ineo's NA215U Plus enclosure. This time there was a whopping 3 seconds difference! In contrast, Seagate's Black Armor PS110 was 2 seconds slower than Ineo's enclosure.



The few seconds difference on each of these tests between MUKii and Ineo is very slim, while the difference between Thermaltake's BlacX 5G Dock is larger since it uses slightly different technology. With Seagate's Black Armor PS110, the speed difference could be caused by a different model hard drive being installed. All of these drive enclosures allow performance which is much faster than a USB 2.0 device, and a 10 second difference is minor when you look at the difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.