Chrome "safe" i-Stor iS601
The steady growth of the laptop market and the "expanding" fiber networks increasingly make people think about buying capacious storage, where you could put tons of your favorite music and movies.
However, for a laptop, which "hard" do not buy - everything will be small. The output most often becomes an external hard drive or a cheaper option: a container for several hard drives at once. One of these containers will be discussed in this review: i-Stor iS601.
The package includes: the container itself, instructions for it, a USB 2.0 cable, a power cable with an adapter, but - attention! - no eSata wire, although the box says that the iS-601 has both a USB port and eSata. At the same time, in the picture, except for one USB port and a connector for the power adapter, it is not detected.
The i-Stor iS601 is a chromed “safe” in which you can insert up to two 3.5-inch SATA hard drives. The device is made without any frills: just a small, but rather weighty metal box with a plastic front panel. It is somewhat similar to a toy system unit: only functions that are by no means fulfilled are toy ones.
The case is a little rough, metal is felt. Bottom made round rubber legs, which prevents the device from crawling on the table. In order to install hard drives in a container, a long and painful study of the instructions is not required: just remove the cover, insert the drives, connect to the network, then to the computer and - voila! By the way, without a front cover, the device is somewhat similar to a toaster, but the role of “bread” is played by hard drives.
On the back side there is a USB interface, a power connector, a power button and a Kensington Lock lock hole (convenient, but it’s not clear why should I lock the container with the key if the disks can be pulled out?).
Inside, there is a cooler that will cool the hard drives during operation. The noise level is quite low. About the same as a laptop, so it practically does not interfere.
Under the front panel is a switch of operating modes and LEDs that indicate the operation of hard drives and the availability of power. Hard drives are inserted without much effort. They are not visible behind the lid, but because of the grill in front and the fan in the back, the cooling is good, overheating does not happen.
What upset me personally is that, unlike the older iS602, the 601th cannot create RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays, so only Non-RAID has to be content. But on the other hand, support for large volumes (more than 2 TB) is encouraging. The opportunity was to try the hard drives "only" at 1 TB and 500 GB. As a result: the disk was easily recognized by the system, quickly indexed, and within a minute were ready for battle.
When connected to a computer, the container is defined as a standard disk drive (like a USB flash drive or external hard drive), that is, it is displayed as a removable disk. It works on both a regular PC and Mac, which I think will delight fans of Apple.
Winchesters are detected immediately and, moreover, to work with them through such a container, it is not necessary to format them, which made me happy, because I did not want to lose all the data and collections. In the iS602 model, when creating RAID 0 (the volume on two disks is summed up, but reliability is low) or RAID 1 (information on two disks is duplicated, but reliability increases significantly), you will still have to format both disks.
The data transfer speed, of course, is lower than when using eSata, but still it is at a sufficient level corresponding to the USB speed. The average speed was at 185 Mbit / s for writing and 271 Mbit / s for reading.
The price of this device in Russia varies in the region of 2000-2500 rubles. Given the fact that you can work with two disks in one case at once, I have no complaints about the price. Although ... The same i-Stor 602 costs not much more than 2800 rubles, and it has clearly more advantages.
iS601 is quite a worthy instance in this price range. The device pleases with compactness, pleasant appearance and fairly low price. For many, it fits well into the overall concept of the workplace.
I think this container is useful for those who do not have enough SATA connectors on the motherboard, and need more hard drives, as well as lovers of Mac computers or the now popular netbooks.
Pros:
* nice design,
* USB 2.0,
* easy disk swap,
* Kensington Lock,
* support for large volumes.
Cons:
* lack of the ability to create RAID,
* lack of eSata.
You were Kuuuzya with you. Especially for Habrahabr and CyberStyle.ru
However, for a laptop, which "hard" do not buy - everything will be small. The output most often becomes an external hard drive or a cheaper option: a container for several hard drives at once. One of these containers will be discussed in this review: i-Stor iS601.
Equipment
The package includes: the container itself, instructions for it, a USB 2.0 cable, a power cable with an adapter, but - attention! - no eSata wire, although the box says that the iS-601 has both a USB port and eSata. At the same time, in the picture, except for one USB port and a connector for the power adapter, it is not detected.
Appearance
The i-Stor iS601 is a chromed “safe” in which you can insert up to two 3.5-inch SATA hard drives. The device is made without any frills: just a small, but rather weighty metal box with a plastic front panel. It is somewhat similar to a toy system unit: only functions that are by no means fulfilled are toy ones.
The case is a little rough, metal is felt. Bottom made round rubber legs, which prevents the device from crawling on the table. In order to install hard drives in a container, a long and painful study of the instructions is not required: just remove the cover, insert the drives, connect to the network, then to the computer and - voila! By the way, without a front cover, the device is somewhat similar to a toaster, but the role of “bread” is played by hard drives.
On the back side there is a USB interface, a power connector, a power button and a Kensington Lock lock hole (convenient, but it’s not clear why should I lock the container with the key if the disks can be pulled out?).
Inside, there is a cooler that will cool the hard drives during operation. The noise level is quite low. About the same as a laptop, so it practically does not interfere.
Under the front panel is a switch of operating modes and LEDs that indicate the operation of hard drives and the availability of power. Hard drives are inserted without much effort. They are not visible behind the lid, but because of the grill in front and the fan in the back, the cooling is good, overheating does not happen.
Functional
What upset me personally is that, unlike the older iS602, the 601th cannot create RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays, so only Non-RAID has to be content. But on the other hand, support for large volumes (more than 2 TB) is encouraging. The opportunity was to try the hard drives "only" at 1 TB and 500 GB. As a result: the disk was easily recognized by the system, quickly indexed, and within a minute were ready for battle.
When connected to a computer, the container is defined as a standard disk drive (like a USB flash drive or external hard drive), that is, it is displayed as a removable disk. It works on both a regular PC and Mac, which I think will delight fans of Apple.
Winchesters are detected immediately and, moreover, to work with them through such a container, it is not necessary to format them, which made me happy, because I did not want to lose all the data and collections. In the iS602 model, when creating RAID 0 (the volume on two disks is summed up, but reliability is low) or RAID 1 (information on two disks is duplicated, but reliability increases significantly), you will still have to format both disks.
The data transfer speed, of course, is lower than when using eSata, but still it is at a sufficient level corresponding to the USB speed. The average speed was at 185 Mbit / s for writing and 271 Mbit / s for reading.
The price of this device in Russia varies in the region of 2000-2500 rubles. Given the fact that you can work with two disks in one case at once, I have no complaints about the price. Although ... The same i-Stor 602 costs not much more than 2800 rubles, and it has clearly more advantages.
General impression
iS601 is quite a worthy instance in this price range. The device pleases with compactness, pleasant appearance and fairly low price. For many, it fits well into the overall concept of the workplace.
I think this container is useful for those who do not have enough SATA connectors on the motherboard, and need more hard drives, as well as lovers of Mac computers or the now popular netbooks.
Pros:
* nice design,
* USB 2.0,
* easy disk swap,
* Kensington Lock,
* support for large volumes.
Cons:
* lack of the ability to create RAID,
* lack of eSata.
You were Kuuuzya with you. Especially for Habrahabr and CyberStyle.ru