By Andrew Liszewski
As far as I can tell, this Hardbox external drive case serves two purposes. (Besides of course backing up your data.) For starters, if you don’t want a desk full of ugly external hard drives (some aren’t too bad) you can stick it on a nearby shelf alongside your copies of Moby Dick, Treasure Island and the hardcover Harry Potter tomes where it should somewhat blend in. Then, as an added bonus, it might actually keep your hard drive safe from particularly stupid or poor-sighted burglars who don’t realize that one book on the shelf with the blinking LEDs isn’t a book at all. Unlikely, but you never know.
The enclosure supports 3.5 inch SATA I or II drives and connects to your PC via USB. It doesn’t have a fan, but instead uses the fake page detailing on the edges as a heat sync, keeping it extremely quiet. The power supply is built-in so the AC cord doesn’t require a large transformer on the end, but that does add to the enclosure’s overall size. On the back you’ll find a physical write protection switch as well as a ‘Backup’ button for manually starting a backup of your data. It also includes scheduling software so you can set the backups to happen automatically on a regular basis.
While the bright red spine isn’t that appealing, the rest of the enclosure seems not too bad. Though I’m not sure if the $300 price tag (315,000 KRW) includes a hard drive or not.
[ SAROTECH Hardbox ] VIA [ AVING USA ]
