Is data storage important for you?! Let’s ask ourselves “Do we really have that much important Data on our computers?!” My answer, “I definitely rely on a constant need of Data backup every hour and day for my regular day job, night job, and my life.” In many walks of life, many of these manufacturing companies come up with the most exclusive, fascinating, and trendiest designs to fit perfectly to your personality. Inevitably it’s all the same technology type in competition but depending on flavors, some like M&Ms, some like Sour Patch Kids and some like Skittles because they can taste the rainbow, whatever the reason is, what’s your favorite flavor? Today, UMLan welcomes and thanks MUKii Technology USA for providing us with multiple flavors for a test.

MUKii Technology is a fairly new branded company that has been around since end of last year 2010, which should be their first year anniversary now. “Happy 1 Year Anniversary MUKii, many more years to come and grow!!” MUKii specializes in the Data Storage Market as well as PSU’s and peripherals market. MUKii promotes a green walk of life in technology, meaning healthy, focused, and growing strong with a pursuit of happiness for a long term quality in life. Since the birth of MUKii started, UMLan would definitely love to see them succeed into one of the major players in computer hardware manufacturing. Let’s check out what MUKii has to offer!?

Today, MUKii sent us a few storage products for review but we will be reviewing the MUKii ZIPO ZIO-P015U3 HDD Enclosure. We were provided the Bright Lime Green 3.5” USB 3.0 Enclosure, though they do have multiple colorations to choose from their product line. What makes MUKii different is by design, simple plastic enclosure with an USB 3.0 to SATA Cable for direct USB transfer, also included with a SATA Power Line Bracket to mount internally (uh, say whaaat?) and SATA Power Line Cable to draw in additional power to those HDD’s that come in higher RPM drives. This is a fascinating design because usually, 3.5” Drive Enclosures are made permanent to Desktop Computers but it is made portable without a power adapter. We’ll see how the test results performed a bit later in the review, can’t wait to see the results.

Setup:

• Cooler Master CM Storm Trooper
• Intel i5 2500K Sandy Bridge Quad-Core Processor Unlocked
• Cooler Master Gemin II S524 CPU Cooler
• MSI P67A-G45 (B3) LGA1155 SATA 6GB/s USB 3.0
• Thermaltake TP-1050AH3CSG 1050W PSU
• Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 3.5” 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s
• OCZ Vertex 3 Series MI 120GB

About the Product

The following information was provided by MUKii web site and used for general specifications.

Product Specs:

• Model : ZIO-P015U3-YL/BL/GR/PK/GY/BK
• Application : SATA Hard Drive
• Device size: 3.5"
• Dimensions : 160 x 115.6 x 37.4mm
• Material : Plastic

Key Features:

• Easily protect your 3.5" Hard Drive.
• Solid Buckle Design.
• Water, Moist, Dust , Quake Proof and Anti-static.
• Space Saving Design with Unlimited Stack.
• Various Colors for Choice.
• Includes ZIPO-SATA to USB 3.0 Quick Cable

Now that we got basic information out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the MUKii ZIPO ZIO-P015U3 HDD Enclosure.

Closer look

Front of Package		Rear of Package

Left of Package		Right of Package

Overall view of the Package		Bottom of Package

Opening from the Top of Package

MUKii’s Box design is grayed out with very bright colorful paint like splashes along with its product class called the ZIPO as in Zippo Lighters, the mechanics of flip top products. The MUKii Company Logo is Grass Green which has a nice modern touch to the design with some product features printed as well on the front of the packaging and what is included. The left side of the packaging includes their various colors and included accessories, while the right side has a small instruction guide to organize your future HDD’s. The rear of the packaging has a descriptive multilingual product description which is quite handy for in-store retail shops to know what you are buying. Let’s see what’s in the box now, currently it’s full of goodies in there which contains the necessary cables, power adapter, an additional bracket, and the user instruction manual.

What's in the Package!?		Top Lid Cover

Front of the Product		Back of the Product

Left Side of Product		Right Side of Product

Bottom of Product		Bottom SATA Adapter Connection Slot

Inside Goodies!!!		User Instruction Manual

Internal SATA Power Adapter Bracket		External SATA Power Adapter

Front view of the SATA Power Adapter Bracket		Front view of SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter Cable

Side view of SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter Cable		Back view of SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter Cable

From the top view, we see the enclosure and a sticker label for the HDD enclosure which is pretty nice, meaning we can keep on stacking and know how to organize our drives. The front view of the package, we can see additional labels for detailed information to write on along with the company logo which is imprinted to the mold together during production. The left side of the enclosure, we have the cover swing arm holding the top and body together as well as a latched lock on the right hand side of the product. The rear of the product, an imprinted design was purposely made to make stackable to the bottom, basically like Lego pieces. Underneath the bottom portion, a thin soft rubber lid was created directly for the SATA adapter connection.

Testing

Testing the MUKii ZIPO ZIO-P015U3 HDD Enclosure was a breeze, just had to spend quite some time to do so and finally finished. I wanted to provide some nice images for everyone to view, the tests results today are provided by the following company software’s for benching: ATTO, HDTUNE PRO, SANDRA, and PassMark Performance Test. The results came back positive for the MUKii ZIPO ZIO-P015U3 HDD Enclosure but the adapter seemed to boot off and on a few times. The current USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 transfer speed detailed results are shown below:

ATTO

USB 3.0 r/w: 119-120 MBP/s		USB 2.0 r/w: 12-30/37 MBP/s

HDTUNE PRO

USB 3.0 r/w: 112-120 MBP/s		USB 2.0 r/w: 29/36-29/39 MBP/s

SANDRA

USB 3.0 r/w: 66.89-122.882 MBP/s		USB 2.0 r/w: 35.131-35.492 MBP/s

PASSMARK Performance Test

USB 3.0: 113.3 MBP/s		USB 2.0: 20.7 MBP/s

ATTO showed positive signs for USB 3.0 and 2.0 based on stability. HDTUNE PRO shows a stable performance on USB 2.0 but USB 3.0 displays falling rates near the end of the test and hangs in for the rest of the test. SANDRA displays a pretty stable result, during the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 test, we see that there is a normal and stable rate but the funny view we all see is USB 3.0 Access Times are lower than USB 2.0 but that is a good thing! Lower the Better for Access Times! PASSMARK Performance Test shows a simple table as CrystalDiskMark displaying only the Sequential Read, Sequential Write, Random Seek – RW and the Final Disk Mark Results which is very good.

Conclusion

Today, UMLan would like to thank MUKii once again for a great and interesting product line, this is not the end of MUKii since we have more of their products to test and show everyone, stay tuned in with UMLan. The MUKii ZIPO ZIO-P015U3 HDD Enclosure is a fairly new and bright idea in comparison to many manufacturers that are developing the same type of technology concept, very similar to many different manufacturers for USB 3.0 products. MUKii also sells this model for $24.99 MSRP which is low affordable cost for a 3.5" USB 3.0 Enclosure. All in all, the MUKii ZIPO ZIO-P015U3 HDD Enclosure packaging, product design, product performance, and product test deserves an overall total score of 9/10 for the following pro and cons listed below.

Some pros we found:

First 3.5” HDD Enclosure without a Power Adapter
Easy to use
Easy to carry as a regular protection case
Easy to organize with labels
Stackable
Tool-less/Fast installation Technology

Price

Some cons we found:

No Power Adapter included
HDD Damage during physical drops