Korean station wagon. Overview of a pocket for HDD from Zalman
In the distant (now already) February last year, Zalman introduced the world to an updated family of external enclosures for various drives, both 2.5 inches and 3.5 inches.
Of course, this event is ordinary, but I remembered about it almost a year later because I dug up a 3.5 TB HDD from WD that was saved from the previous desktop. It’s not good to be lost, therefore, rummaging around on price aggregators and evaluating the assortment, I chose the model from Zalman - ZM-HE350UE . What came of it, read below ...
Firstly, this is the only sane pocket that combined eSATA (is in my current laptop) and USB 3.0 (will be in my future) and at the same time cost an adequate amount of money, and it looked nice - he really stand on the table, do not spoil the interior of the Chinese abomination.
But it turned out to be annoying that I did not find a review of this device on the Internet. Remembering the pleasant past impressions of communicating with the Korean brand, I waved my hand, purchased the HE350U3E and decided to share a small overview and impressions of the operation of this device with the Habrasociety.
Box and scope of delivery
The pocket comes in a white box on which all the necessary information is displayed: on the front side - which data transfer interfaces are supported (in small print, the proud inscription that this device is protected by Zalman patents - it became even interesting what).
On one of the side faces it is marked for which region this box is bundled, on the other - detailed specifications and a diagram with the phenomenal advantage of USB 3.0 over 2.0;
On the bottom there is a description of the device in 7 languages, including Russian, and, of course, the inscription “Made in Korea”, which is even subconsciously several times more pleasant than the already boring “China”.
Inside the box are:
- aluminum case for HDD
- 4 screws for attaching the HDD to the case and a tiny screwdriver
- USB 3.0 cable
- eSATA cable (50 cm long, 26AWG cross-section)
- power adapter Power-Tek, 12V - 1500mA at the output (length 150 cm, cross section 22AWG)
- assembly instructions
Characteristics and internal structure
Pulling out the case itself, you feel a light cool metal and light weight. The dimensions of the case are 116.6 (H) x 47 (W) x 201 (D) mm.
The front (mounted on two latches) and rear (mounted on 4 screws) parts are made of polycarbonate (hi Nokia N9 :), the case itself is made of aluminum, powder painted, glossy.
The rear and front panels have ventilation holes that should provide at least some, but air circulation.
Indicators are equipped with corresponding icons, everything is clear and without explanation.
All connectors are signed and located flawlessly. The blue USB 3.0 is still a curiosity for me.
A circuit board is also made in Korea, using the Prolific PL2773 as an eSATA and USB 3.0 port controller .. Of course, full compatibility with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 modes is preserved. The manufacturer documents the installation of only a 3.5-inch HDD.
Installing the HDD inside is easy and without hesitation, the drive is practically adjacent to the elements of the aluminum case, but still there is still room for an air layer.
When everything is assembled, our glossy friend confidently stands on a table or other surface: thanks to the rubber legs, he is very stable and absolutely does not slip on any non-exotic coating.
Methodology
The next step, of course, is testing. As the software with which we will measure performance, I chose:
- Futuremark PCMark 7
- Futuremark PCMark Vantage
- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1
I also had to work hard and to find a PC that would have both eSATA and USB 3.0 for the purity of the experiment. The gaming beast from the MSI GT680R (Core i7-2720QM, 16GB RAM, 2xSSD Intel 128GB in RAID 0, etc.) was the test bench. It certainly won’t become a bottleneck in this test.
It is worth recalling that the HDD I use is WD Caviar Green, which has a reduced spindle speed and, therefore, far from record speed indicators, but at the same time it is very quiet and cold. Thus, probably, it is precisely these versions of drives that can be recommended for installation in external “fanless” pockets for HDD design like Zalman's.
Test results
Well, the picture is expected. Firstly, I would like to note that both “high-speed” interfaces revealed the potential of the drive (it would be surprising if they did not), while in almost all tests the eSATA protocol has an advantage. Of course, the difference is small, and it can be attributed to the old revision of the USB 3.0 controller used in the laptop (just kidding, an updated version of the same USB 3.0 chip can bring up to 30% growth in certain tasks), or the Prolific chip itself installed in your pocket likes eSATA more. In fact, this does not matter: both interfaces do an excellent job of the task now and, hopefully, in the future.
Here you can begin to write conclusions, but! we forgot about one important point: what is the temperature of our drive after exhausting hours of testing? And it is only 43C - here you can applaud both the WD engineers, who made a quiet and cold drive, and the Korean Zalman masters, because despite its compactness, the case provided a comfortable mode for HDD operation. Yes, I did not test or measure the temperature of the HDD electronics, it can often overheat in this situation, but for some reason I think that everything will be okay with it.
conclusions
Zalman ZM-HE350UE is certainly an interesting and well-made device, it has all the characteristics to become the best choice among devices in its price segment, combining the well-known eSATA standard with gradually penetrating deeper and deeper into the USB 3.0 industry. You can use it now, and not worry about tomorrow. In addition, he fully satisfied my requirements, which I am incredibly happy. This is the case when the “thing” worthily defended the honor of its brand.
UPD:
Average price for Zalman ZM-HE350UE - 50 USD