Introduction
Today we are going to take a look at M-SERIES Consus(ET-CS2MU2-BK) hard drive enclosure. Ever had an old hard drive from an old laptop? Well why not put it to a good use? Back in a day when we had IDE hard drives we often wished for a way to mount and run them externally. Now that we have caught up with the technology we can finally use IDE in the external enclosure. The problem is that not many of us out there still use IDE hard drive but rather more SATA I and II drives due to the faster and greater performance improvements in SATA. With release of solid state drives IDE falls back on the last place of the race. So what to do with the old drives? Throw them in an enclosure and use them as an additional storage:) Lets take a look at M-SERIES Consus more closely.
About the Product
Following information is taken from the Eagle's website.
OVERVIEW
Don’t let your hard drive overheat! This distinctively designed enclosure keeps your drive running cooler than ever with its mesh structure optimized for airflow. A truly portable solution, it eliminates the hassle of having to find a power outlet and fits perfectly into your pocket or notebook bag when not in use.
FEATURES
• Ultra portable at only 0.3” thick
• Well ventilated mesh structure
• USB powered
• Plug-n-Play via USB 2.0
• Usage: Easy add-on storage for mobile users
SPECIFICATION
• Type: External drive enclosure
• Form Factor: 2.5”
• Hard Drive Compatibility: 320 GB
• Internal Interface: IDE (66/100/133)
• External Interface: Hi-speed USB 2.0
• Data Transfer Rate: 480Mbps
• Power Source: USB powered
• Power Input: 5V DC
• Certification: FCC, CE Certified and RoHS compliant
• O.S. Required: Microsoft Win98SE/Vista/ME/2000/XP Mac OS 9.0 or higher Linux
• Dimension: 5.1 x 3.2 x 0.3 inch
• Weight: 0.7 lbs
PACKAGE CONTENT
External storage system
Quick installation guide
Certified USB 2.0 cables
Now that we got basic information out of the way, lets take a closer look at M-SERIES Consus.
Closer look
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Box Front |
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Box Back |
As always Eagle's theme is black and orange and yet again they manage to use the same color schema for the marketing of M-SERIES Consus. On the front of the box we can clearly see the actual enclosure unit and a little bit of information on where you could use this unit in. On the back of the box we found a specifications and some of the distinctive features about M-SERIES Consus.
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Side Shot |
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Top Shot |
Eagle tries to make sure that the item a customer is looking at is designed by Eagle. We could see various logos and markings that reflect that. It is very nice however, i do not think it is that important to place your logo on every side of the box. heh. On the top of the box there are big letters mentioning that this is a Portable 2.5" External Storage System.
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Out of the box |
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M-SERIES Mobile |
Un boxing was rather easy. Just a few un tucks and everything came right out of the box. The contents of the box were M-SERIES Consus shell unit, a USB 2.0 connector and an instructional manual. It is always important to read the manual first so you don't make mistakes later on. Even thou the installation is a breeze it is a still good idea to look over the manual prior to the install.
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M-SERIES Bottom |
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USB 2.0 mini connector |
M-SERIES Consus shell is made out of a see trough mesh which adds on to the cooling of the drive. Very much stylish i may add. On the back of the M-SERIES Consus we have found a single USB mini connector which connects the M-SERIES Consus to the computer. No need for power. IDE doesn't require additional power besides the usb +5.
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Front shot |
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Opened |
From the front M-SERIES Consus looks very thing. M-SERIES Consus is only .3" thick which makes it stand out on the table. I know i mentioned earlier but the mesh makes all the difference here:) Once we have opened M-SERIES Consus we discovered a set of screws which are used to close the enclosure once the hard drive have been installed.
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IEDE close up |
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Size comparison |
M-SERIES Consus comes in two flavors, IDE and SATA both to USB. We are reviewing the IDE version of M-SERIES Consus and you can see in the picture above that it is equipped with IDE connector. M-SERIES Consus is just a little bit longer than your standard 2.5" drive.
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Installed Hard Drive |
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M-SERIES |
Installing the drive was very easy. Just slide the drive in to a socket and close the cover. TADA! We are all set and ready to go in to testing.
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M-SERIES ON |
When powering on the M-SERIES Consus, the LED on the back started to blink to show us that the drive is being accessed. There are no fans in this unit so this make it as quiet as your IDE drive is. Now that we got the pictionary out of the way, let take a look at some testing data.
Testing
| ASUS P5K-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard |
| MSI RX2600XT Diamond Plus Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR4 PCI Express x16 HDCP |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor |
| 4 Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM SATA-300 Hard Drive |
| 2 OCZ Reaper HPC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit |
Our standard testing procedure is HD Tach benchmark and Sandra Benchmark. With HD Tach we have performed two tests 8 MB and 32 MB.
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HD Tach 8 Mb vs 32 Mb test USB 2.0 |
The average speed we got between two tests (the highest) 19.7 Mb/s. This is an OK speed for IDE controller. In all seriousness you are not going to get much better values out of IDE drive. Please note that this unit would only be usable for small file transfers.
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Sandra |
Sandra benchmark showed us a drive index of 13.92MB/s. Comparing to the performance of sata drive, this unit doesn't stand a chance.
Conclusion
Today we have looked at M-SERIES Consus (IDE to USB version). It is a very nice little gadget and could be used to recover or transfer files from old generation hard drives IDE. Eagle has other version of M-SERIES Consus which is SATA enabled, so if you are looking for more speed and performance out of the 2.5" hard drive enclosure you might want to check that one out. M-SERIES Consus has a lightweight body which is made of mesh aluminum. By being made out of mesh M-SERIES Consus does not require any additional fans for cooling. M-SERIES Consus also doesn't require any additional power, so plug the USB connector and you are all set to rock and roll. Please keep in mind that this is IDE version of M-SERIES Consus and the performance/speed of the drive would have not drop jaws however, it is perfectly useful to transfer small files and perhaps some file storage. Basing on the functionality and ease of use of M-SERIES Consus i would like to give this enclosure a solid 8 out of 10! Very useful if you have old drives laying around.
Some pros we found:
Slim design
Easy to install hard drive and operate
Does not require additional power or cooling
Some cons we found:
None that we could find.
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