UMLan

Being a computer enthusiast, i often use accessories to get my work done. I have a lot of files which i keep on about 20 hard drives and sometimes it takes me a while to find the right hard drive with the right files. There are few accessories on the market which will let you to plug your hard drive in and browse the files with in. Those accessories are very much valuable in the geek world. Today we are going to take a look at one of these accessories, I-NA314Ue by Ineo Technologies. I-NA314Ue is 3.5" hard drive enclosure which allow its users to gain a fast access to their files on external hard drives. In addition to providing a user with accessibility to files, I-NA314Ue offers a neat enclosure for an easy transport of hard drives. Let us take a look and see what this unit is all about.

The I-NA314Ue series is an intelligent Plug-and-Play high speed USB 2.0+eSATA with two USB HUB portable docking station to connect USB devices such as USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB enclosure and USB thumb drive. It gives you the flexibility of connecting any SATA I/II H.D.D to your PC or laptop through USB 2.0 or eSATA interface without opening up your computer case or installing into an enclosure. Simply insert any 2.5” or 3.5” SATA I/II hard drive into the I-NA314Ue docking station and you are ready to transfer, copy, or backup your multimedia and data files.

Without casing provides excellent silent cooling
USB2.0 Transfer rate up to 480Mb/s
Fully compatible with 2.5” or 3.5" SATA I/II Hard Disk Drives
Truly Plug and Play and Hot Swappable
Extra Adapter for power supply to ensure hard disk drive works without black outs
Attractive Blue LED illuminated light indicates power activity

External Interface: USB 2.0 (Backwards compatible w/ USB 1.1)／USB HOST X2
Supports: 2.5”/3.5” SATA Hard Drive；USB device with USB HOST
Data transfer rate: eSATA @ 3Gbps / USB 2.0 @ 480Mbps
Material: ABS(Plastic)
Support Hard Drive Capacity: 3.5” Hard Drive up to 2TB/ 2.5” Hard Drive up to 1TB
OS Requirements: Windows2000/XP/2003/Vista/7, (32/64-bit) /Mac/Linux
Power Source: AC Power Adapter
Dimensions: 5.3”(L) x 3.3”(W) x 7.3”(H)

Now that we got basic information out of the way, lets take a closer look at I-NA314Ue.

I-NA314Ue comes in a pretty bulky box with a stylish picture of the unit in the front. This whole unit is pretty much a docking station for an external hard drive.On the back of the packaging Ineo gives a small demonstration of the I-NA314Ue with some transfer speeds graph. The whole packaging has a blue and black theme and fits right in the black theme of the I-NA314Ue.

On both sides of the packaging we found some useful information regarding the unit. On one side we found Features and Specifications of the I-NA314Ue and on the other side we found a friendly information about the unit and some of the applications where you might use the I-NA314Ue. Keeping things very informative sometimes is the best way to a quick sale.

I-NA314Ue comes with a driver cd, user manual, power adapter, USB 2.0 cable, eSATA cable and the actual unit itself. I-NA314Ue consists of two major parts, the docking station and the hard drive enclosure. There isn't much color here. Everything is pretty much black with the exception of the Ineo logo in the front of the unit.

The front of the I-NA314Ue docking station has a stylish logo of Ineo. Under this logo there are two LED's red and blue. These are power and activity LED's for notifications. On the back of the unit we found a eSATA connector, USB 2.0 connector, power connector and an on / off switch. What no USB 3.0 support? Dont worry, USB 3.0 is being implemented into this model as we speak. So it will be not long for the new and improved version of I-NA314Ue.

On the right side of the unit we found 2 handy usb for any additional accessories you may have. Four rubber feet are strategically placed on the bottom of the I-NA314Ue to keep the docking station stable while operation.

I-NA314Ue is designed for a SATA hard drives and therefore the only socket is available in the unit is sata. You can use a standalone hard drive or the hard drive with in the provided enclosure to read your files. The included hard drive enclosure is also black color and comes with a semi clear top from which you can see the hard drive inside. The clear top has a plastic sticker that protects the I-NA314Ue from scratches during shipping.

On the back of the hard drive enclosure we found four round holes which are used to mount the hard drive. We also found the top of the enclosure being a different color and it appears that it could be removed but we haven't figured out for what. In the middle of the enclosure there is a meshed section for the hard drive ventilation. There are no fans in this unit so this is the only way to cool your hard drive. The hard drive enclosure is a little bit bigger and bulkier than bare hard drive.

Securing the hard drive in the enclosure is pretty easy. We placed the hard drive face down in to the enclosure and matched the mounting holes. A few screws and the hard drive was installed and ready to go.

As we have mentioned earlier, the Ineo logo has two LED's which light up on the power and access of the hard drive inside. The whole installation took less than 30 seconds and we were ready to play around with this unit.

For our testing we are going to be using HD Tach 3.0.4.0 to perform benchmarks on a Seagate 3.5" hard drive. Lets see what numbers we get with I-NA314Ue.

Running HD Tach with USB 2.0 connection we got an average read of 35.1 MB/s and burst speeds as high as 37.8 MB/s. This is pretty much all you can get out of the USB 2.0 connection.

We repeated the same benchmark with eSATA and this time we have gotten much faster speeds than USB 2.0 which are expected. Average read speeds were 70.5 MB/s with the burst speeds as high as 159.9 MB/s. Just a tad higher than SATA 150.

It is hard to find right enclosure that would provide the right acceptability and speed. With I-NA314Ue by your side you should have no problem accessing your spare hard drives to find that right file. This particular unit comes with a removable enclosure which is really helpful while transporting the hard drive. You don't nesseraly need the enclosure to mount the hard drive. We have tried to mount the hard drive without the enclosure and did not have any problems doing so, however we do not recommend doing so as the hard drive becomes fragile without the enclosure. The docking station provides USB 2.0 and eSATA connections as well as two additional USB 2.0 connections on the side for any additional accessories you might have. Considering this is a relatively new unit the USB 3.0 connection is not offered with this model and that's a big turn off for I-NA314Ue. I strongly think that by adding USB 3.0 support this unit will stand up against some other hard drive readers such as ThermalTake BlacX. I-NA314Ue is a very well build unit and has a lot to offer to the users. I strongly think that I-NA314Ue deserves a shot if you are looking for similar type of enclosures.