Eagle Tech Consus P-Series Portable 2.5” Hard Drive Enclosure Review

Archive

Eagle Tech Consus P-Series Portable 2.5” Hard Drive Enclosure Review

Written by PR0F GIGGLES

Article Index
Eagle Tech Consus P-Series Portable 2.5” Hard Drive Enclosure Review
Specifications and Features
Testing
Conclusion
All Pages

Kingwin EZ-Dock Hard Drive Docking Station Review< Prev		Next >In-Win 'NA 3.5 HDD Enclosure Review

When it comes to 2.5” HDD enclosures there usually isn’t much difference in use, you plug them in do your stuff, then unplug them. Really it comes down to the features. Some are made to be stream lined but don’t have a built in USB cable so you need to pack one when ever you take it anywhere, while some do have said cable but it’s too short to be of any use. Well that’s about to change, introducing the Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” HDD Enclosure has a built in USB cable that can actually reach further than half an inch. Well enough talking let’s take a closer look at this product:

Product Provided By: Eagle Tech

Price: $18.99

Closer Look:

As far as the packaging for the Eagle Tech Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” HDD Enclosure is concerned it follows the template of the rest of the Eagle Tech products I have seen. It is bright and flashy and has a nice window right in front in order to see the product without even opening the box. I know that to some this might not seem like a big thing but I really appreciate the effort to not just put a glamour shot of the product but to actually see the product first hand. The front of the box has a few features and also clearly displays the main feature of this enclosure, its USB Cable.

The back of the box displays all of the specs and features of this handy little enclosure. Unfortunately the box got me exited in that it displays the e SATA model and lists them under the features but if you look closely you see that the use this package for both, the USB 2.0 and the USB 2.0/ e SATA so make sure you got what you wanted before opening.

The Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” HDD Enclosure itself is made of aluminum and feels very solid once it has a hard drive installed. This model is compatible with SATA hard drives, this model the ET-CS2PSU2-BK works with hard drives up to 320 GB, and as mentioned has a built in USB cable that is actually useful. The Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” HDD Enclosure is also compatible with both Windows and Macs.

Included with the Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” HDD Enclosure is a driver disk and an USB extension cable which I find almost pointless as that is the whole point of the built in cable, but whatever it’s a free USB extension.

What’s on the included disk you ask? Well on the disk are a few simple utilities that some might find useful. On the disk is; a 30 day trial of VMware Workstation 6, Disk Doctors Data Recovery, avast! AntiVirus Home Edition, and Adobe Acrobat Reader. Also on the disk is a direct link to there products, reviews, etc.

Let’s take a closer look at the specs and features:

Specifications:

Type: External
Form Factor: 2.5”
Hard : 320GB (5400RPM 8MB cache)
Internal Interface: SATA I/II
External Interface: Hi-speed USB 2.
Data Transfer Rate: 480Mbps
Power Source: USB powered
Certification: FCC, CE Certified and RoHS compliant
O.S. Required: Win98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista Mac OS 9.0 or higher Linux
Dimension: 5.4 x 3.2 x 0.4 inch
Weight: 0.8 lbs

Features:

320GB eSATA pocket hard
Ultra at only 0.4” thick
Reinforced aluminum chassis
Soft-glowing drive activity LED
Integrated USB cable (no messy wires)
USB powered (no bulky AC adapter)
Plug-n-Play USB 2.0
Usage: Easy add-on storage for mobile users

Now that we got that out of the way let’s see how well it does by doing some testing:

Testing Setup:

CPU: Q6600
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3
Memory: 2 x 2GB Kingston
OS: Windows XP Home SP3
Video Card: ATI Radeon EAH 4550
Power Supply: 550 W PSU
Case: NZXT Tempest

Testing:

For this I will be using our standard enclosure tests. I will start by using HD Tune, which Is a free benchmarking tool that will tell me the min, max, and average speeds in MB/sec (I will only record the average), it will also tell me the Access Time in ms, the Burst Rate in MB/sec, and it will also tell me how hard the CPU had to work for the test. After that I will be uploading three files and timing how long they take to transfer. I will be uploading a 10 MB, a 100 MB, and a 500 MB files. To test the Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” HDD Enclosure I will be putting up against my Eagle Tech Consus L-Series 2.5” HD Enclosure

HD Tune

Enclosure	Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5	Eagle Tech Consus L-Series 2.5
Ave	28.7 MB/sec	28.7 MB/sec
Access Time	17.5 ms	17.6 ms
Burst Rate	27.8 MB/sec	27.7 MB/sec
CPU Usage	2.6 %	2.8%

Transfer Time

Enclosure	Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5	Eagle Tech Consus L-Series 2.5
10 MB	1	1
100 MB	3.5	5
500 MB	17	18

So From these tests we can see that there really isn’t much difference in how well it works, it more comes down to ease of use. While using the Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5” I can just pop out the USB cable, plug it in, and then off I go. With the Eagle Tech Consus L-Series 2.5” I have to use an extension because I find the built in USB cable in that model to be too short.

Let’s move on to my final thoughts:

Conclusion:

So what can I say other than that I really, really liked it. I used to carry my enclosure with me where ever I went but had to make sure to remember the extension cable. But with the Eagle Tech Consus P-Series 2.5:” taking my files with me wherever I go is made even easier. While some might not think that it looks as stylish since it lacks a leather cover like some enclosures, I find that the cold aluminum build of this enclosure is a great touch and a great way to make it still look good. The way that they take care of the USB cable by giving it a nylon sheath is also a nice touch in both making it look just a little better while not having some plastic cover that’s going to break down quickly.

So the big question now that I know is just crawling through your brain, and comes to no surprise is, would I recommend this enclosure? My answer is of course, yes. If you have or ever wanted a need to pack you data with you wherever you went than this would be a great buy. Even if all you are looking for is a small 2.5” hard drive to make a partial back up of your system than this is a great and easy way of doing this without breaking the bank.

Pros: