Portable hard disks are very popular, and they come in varying sizes, but they can be very expensive, and I've found it's a lot cheaper to buy a hard disk and an enclosure separately. The question then would be what type of enclosure to buy? For me the hands down choice would have to be Vizo, I personally own the 1st generation Vizo Luxon and love it, the quality is just amazing. Today for review I have what would be called the 2nd generation Luxon HDD Enclosure, or the Vizo Luxon Advanced. This enclosure features the ability to take an IDE drive and use an eSATA interface with it, of course you can use an SATA drive as well, and it can also be used as a USB drive as well. The best part is that all of the quality from the original is still there in this 2nd generation enclosure. So read on to learn more about what I think is the best HDD enclosure out there today…
Vizo Luxon Advanced Hard Drive Enclosure
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: Vizo
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
LXE-350
Luxon Advanced Hard Drive Enclosure
3.5" IDE / SATA Hard Drive Enclosure
w/ USB & eSATA Interfaces
REAL 3 Gb/s CHIPSET for eSATA SPEED !!!
DESCRIPTION:
VIZO LUXON Advanced, 3.5'' hard drive enclosure features an aluminum housing and supports IDE & SATA hard disks which provides interface not only IDE/SATA to USB 2.0, but also IDE/SATA to eSATA. Fully support 3.5” IDE & SATA hard drive. Furthermore, fashion design with aluminum case provides the best protection and excellent heat dissipation. With LUON Advanced, it is much convenient of you to back up and transfer your data storage easily for your needs.
FEATURES:
Compatible with 3.5" IDE/SATA Hard Drive
Support 480Mbps High Speed USB 2.0
Support 3.0Gbps High Speed external Serial-ATA ( eSATA )
4 functions in it :
USB to IDE HDD, eSATA to IDE HDD
USB to SATA HDD, eSATA to SATA HDD
Sleek and elegant design
Aluminum housing for excellent heat dissipation
Side vents improve convection for better system cooling
Support plug and play & hot swappable
* Must be attached to SATA 3.0G/eSATA 3.0G hot swappable compliant host to enable hot swappable function
SPECIFICATIONS:
Case Material : Aluminum
Host Interface: 480Mbps USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 Compatible)
3.0Gbps High Speed external Serial-ATA ( eSATA )
HDD Type : 3.5 " IDE / SATA Hard Drive
Power Supply : AC/DC POWER Adapter
( AC input: 100~ 240Vac , DC output: +5V/+12V)
Indicators : Blue for POWER on / Purple for file access
Weight : 400 g (without HDD)
Dimensions : 210(L) x 125 (W) x 34 (H) mm
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
For USB 2.0 : Windows 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP / Vista or Mac 8.6 & above
One USB port available for USB Host
For eSATA : Windows 2000/ XP / Vista or Mac 8.6 & above
Proper SATA/eSATA port or SATA card available for eSATA host
Must have SATA 3.0G/eSATA 3.0G hot swappable compliant host to enable hot swappable function
PACKAGE INCLUDES:
3.5" HDD External Enclosure
Stand
USB Cable
eSATA Cable
SATA to eSATA Adapter Cable w/ Bracket
Power Adapter
Power Cable
Screw Fitting Kit
Cleaning Cloth
User Manual
NOTE : Driver needed for Windows 98/98SE
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A Better Look at Things
:
First up of course is the packaging, the box for the Luxon is very stylishly done with lots of information about the enclosure all over it.
The back of the box has all the features, specs and other information listed.
Opening the box we find the Luxon and all its accessories are packaged very well.
Unpacking everything we find a whole slew of accessories have been included with the Luxon.
Vizo even included a cleaning cloth for the enclosure as it very quickly picks up dust and fingerprints, everything is included for all the possibly installation combinations, except of course for the hard drive itself.
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A Better Look at Things
Continued:
The eSATA cable that Vizo included is very thick and sturdy, a nice quality product.
Included also is a stand to mount the drive vertically to save space if need be, the stand itself is very nicely styled.
Can't overlook the power supply, it's a small 'power brick' type that is needed to power the enclosure, actually it's pretty lightweight and small making it nice and portable.
The Luxon enclosure itself is just amazing, I love the design and style that went into this enclosure, it is all aluminum making it efficient at keeping your hard drive cool also. It has a very glossy finish to it, making it pick up dirt and fingerprints easy, but that's why they included the cleaning cloth…
On the back of the enclosure is where we find all the connectors, the top on is the main power connection, under that is the power switch, then the eSATA connection and finally on the bottom the USB connection.
There's not much to the front of the enclosure, but the top and a section of the front is actually the LED indicator light bar, blue when on and blinking purple when transferring files or accessing the drive.
On difference I noticed from the original Luxon was the addition of vents on the bottom for better cooling of the enclosed hard drive.
If you couldn't tell I really like Vizo products, they are exceptionally made and designed very well. All of there products that I have had the privilege to review or own have been excellent in make and performance. Of all the hard drive enclosures I've ever owned I've always come back to the Vizo Luxon, I like how it feels and how it looks, and of course how it works. Installation is pretty easy, and it just looks really cool!
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Installation, Testing and Comparison
As part of the installation process Vizo also included special screws, hex screws to be exact and even included a screwdriver for them.
The screwdriver itself I have found to be very handy, it is a common size and I use the one that came with my original Luxon quite a bit actually… Kind of a nice added bonus
Ok, to install a hard drive you'll need to take the Luxon apart, when the Luxon arrive there are no screws holding it together so that is easy to do, it just slides out of the aluminum enclosure. The interior part of the Luxon is plastic, I'm assuming this is for possible conductivity reasons and also for the weight of the unit as well. The second difference I noticed between the original Luxon and the Luxon Advanced is that he original had an aluminum plate on the back side of the hard drive caddy, the Advanced does not, this does make sense to get rid of it as it will promote cooling and airflow.
The main chipset is located at the back edge of the HDD caddy, here you will find all your connections for IDE, SATA and power. There is also a jumper as well located on the left side that is used to let the Luxon know if you are using SATA or IDE type hard drive.
Since all of my SATA drives are in use in my main computer, I'm using one of my IDE drives, it's a Seagate 7200.7 model, 120gigs in capacity. Vizo included a short IDE ribbon cable and a short Molex power cable to connect your hard drive to the Luxon interface. It's very easy to do, just like you would connect any hard drive in your computer.
The hard drive is then secured to the caddy with four screws on the bottom side.
The Luxon look very nice sitting in its included stand, the stand itself has small rubber protectors on it to prevent scratched to the enclosure and to keep the enclosure from moving.
Oh, and to essentially finish the installation process, the four included hex screws are used at the top corners on each side of the enclosure.
The entire installation process took not even 10 minutes from start to finish.
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Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:
One thing I like about this type of enclosure is that it can essentially bring life and usefulness back to an older IDE drive, especially since the move is to SATA drives now. What better way to make use of an IDE drive than to use it as a backup system or to transport files to and from various places. The Luxon takes that slower IDE interface and super charges it to eSATA and USB2.0 speeds.
My ASUS motherboard with my Intel P4EE has built in eSATA connections so I did not need to use the one that Vizo provided, but it's nice they did provide one so anyone can have an eSATA connection.
I ran tests on the speeds of this drive, using the standard IDE interface direct to my motherboard, the Luxon eSATA interface and the Luxon USB interface. For testing I used SiSoft Sandra 2007 and SimpliSoftware HDTach benchmark software.
First up are the results using SiSoft Sandra 2007, I ran the Physical Disks test and the Removable Storage tests on all the drives.
The Removable Storage test shows us a Combined Index score in Operations per Minute and an Endurance Factor.
Look at the jump, I took an IDE drive and supercharged it, even running at the USB interface it increased the speed of the drive over the standard IDE interface. Very nice indeed.
Next up would be SiSoft Sandra 2007 Physical Disks Test, this give us a Drive Index in MB/s and the Random Access Time in milliseconds.
Drive Index:
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Random Access Time:
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
Here we can see the eSATA interface is very close the the scores of the standard IDE interface for the drive index, but Random Access Time is a bit slower, we're talking milliseconds though, so will you notice three milliseconds? I doubt it really…
For the next set of tests using HDTach, I will be focusing on Burst Speed, Random Access and Average read Speeds of the same three interfaces and comparing them together.
Higher scores are better for Burst Speed and Average Read Speeds.
Lower is better for Random Access Speed
Here we can see that the standard IDE interface is the winner but not clearly, in burst speed yes, but Random Access and Read are very close.
The USB interface is a bit slow, but we new that, still it's nice to have the dual options available to us, you can xfer data via the eSATA and then use the USB for a drive not equipped with eSATA so you are not confined to nay one connection.
As I mentioned before I have owned other enclosures, but I've always only ever used the Luxon, now I have the upgraded Luxon for my personal use and am extremely happy with it.
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Summary:
The Vizo Luxon is, at least in my humble opinion, the best hard drive enclosure you can get, the performance is outstanding and the design and quality are something that can be considered amazing. The Vizo Luxon is a piece of hardware that anyone would not mind having sit on there desk, it is extremely attractive and performs very well.
DragonSteelMods gives the Vizo Luxon Advanced Hard Drive Enclosure a 5 out of 5 score and our recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Excellent quality
-Dual interfaces
-SATA and IDE drives can be used
-Lots of accessories
-Stylish and elegant
Cons:
-None
I would like to thank Vizo for the chance to review the Luxon Advanced Hard Drive Enclosure and for their continued support of DSM.
DIGG IT!!!