|
Spire - CF107-NEB - External HDD Enclosure
Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Author: Joe Di Figlia
Provided By: Spire Cooling Solutions
Page: 1 of 2
|
As our society finds the need to become "on the go," mobile storage solutions needs become more of a necessity than a luxury. As this need develops, companies continue to offer us products that could suit our needs. These products range from the "pre-packaged" deals, like some offerings from Maxtor (3000LE reviewed here), to external enclosures, like the Bytecc ME-320x (reviewed here), for the more technical of consumers. Spire also seems to think that they have an answer to the riddle of mobility. Enter the CF107-NEB.
The CF107-NEB is an external enclosure made to be versatile. It can not only house a 3.5" HDD of up to 300 gigs in size but it can also aid you in your need for an external CD/DVD recorder. When I say an HDD of any size, I mean that you are only limited to what your budget allows (outside of operating system limitations); if you can only afford a 10 gig HDD then you have a 10 gig external storage solution. If your wallet is feeling a little heavy and you feel like owning 250+ gigs of empty space, then feel free to slap it inside this USB 2.0 enclosure and go to your buddy's house to pillage his MP3 collection.
As you can see, it's a sharp looking unit. This differs greatly from the rather ugly appearance of the Maxtor unit aforementioned. The CF107-NEB unit is constructed of aluminum and plastic and blends well on the desk of any user. The dimensions of the unit are rather large, 255×170×55mm (l×w×h), but being that it has the ability to house a full sized CD/DVD drive/burner, that is to be expected.
 
 
The back of the unit is your connection center. This is where you find the power connection, audio connection, and your USB connection. The first thing I took notice of was the power adapter. The unit uses a STANDARD ATX power connection! This, to me, is the greatest thing in the world. Now, you don't have to go fumbling around with manufacturers if you lose it because you can go to Staples and pick up another cable. Being that this is an external unit, and travel is to be expected, so is loss of accessories. Thank you Spire for thinking ahead! The audio and USB connections are standard and really need no introduction. If you don't know what the USB connection is for, then you have no reason for using a device such as this.
When you flip the unit over, you are greeted with some holes on the bottom; these are for mounting your drives in place. This is very important! Although, if you are me, then the only time you mount the drive in place is when you are doing a drop test - um, yeah, a drop test. I will get to that later though, ugh. There are mounting options for 5.25" drives and 3.5" drives. I am a little disappointed that there is no way to mount a 2.5" drive though. Understand that this wouldn't be too common, but the option would be nice.
|
|
|
