Introduction

The history of the hard drive enclosures goes a long way back to USB 1.0 connection. Ever since the invention of the USB 2.0 connection the industry production of hard drive enclosures burst in the implementation of an numerous devices with USB 2.0 support. As technology moves only forward we are experiencing a next stage in the USB history, USB 3.0 connection. The USB 3.0 connection is about 5 times faster than its predecessor USB 2.0. Today we are going to be taking a look at one of the newer hard drive enclosures by Ineo Technologies, I-NA201U+. I-NA201U+ is a 2.5" hard drive enclosure which is equipped with USB 3.0 connectivity. USB 3.0 is backward compatible so you can use this unit on older systems as well as the newest. Lets take a closer look at I-NA201U+ and see what it has to offer.

About the Product

Following information is taken from the Ineo Technology website.

Ineo I-NA201U+ External Hard Drive Enclosure featuring with latest technology SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface with transfer rate up to 5Gbps, 10 times faster than USB 2.0. I-NA201U+ turns any SATA 2.5” notebook internal hard drives into a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 External Pocket hard drive instantly! Imagine you can store and access your data in 10 times faster with Ineo I-N201U+ now! 5Gbps SuperSpeed Performance is perfect for ultra speed data backup or video editing and more applications. Also Ineo I-NA201U+ is designed in Ultra slim, lightweight, fan-less aluminum casing for heat dissipation and quiet operation.

Features

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Interface
10 times faster than USB 2.0
Backwards compatible with USB 2.0/ 1.1
USB bus powered, no power adapter required
Supports most 2.5" SATA I/II hard drives
Hot swap, Plug and Play
Fan-less with silent operation
Aluminum casing for head dissipation

Specifications

Interface: USB 3.0 (Backwards compatible w/ USB 2.0 / 1.1)
Supported Hard Drive: 2.5” Notebook SATA I/II Hard Drive
Data transfer rate: USB3.0 @ 5Gbps / USB2.0 @ 480Mbps
Maximum Speed: 5 Gb/s
Support Hard Drive Capacity: Up to 1TB
Material: Aluminum Casing
OS Requirements: Windows2000/XP/2003/Vista/7, (32/64-bit)
System Requirements: USB 3.0 port or USB 3.0 Controller Card required
Dimensions: 5.4”(L) x 3.1”(W) x 0.5”(H)

Package Contents

Now that we got basic information out of the way, lets take a closer look at I-NA201U+.

Closer look

Front Shot		Rear Shot

I-NA201U+ packaging design is very much opened concept. Right from the front we could see the whole unit. I think this is a great design and it is very helpful when you shop for something and would like to see the unit before opening the packaging. Ineo's default color theme works well here as they utilize light blue, white and black colors throughout the packaging. On the back of the package we found some of the features and specifications of I-NA201U+ along with some action shots of the unit.

USB 3.0 connectivity		Speed Comparison

This particular unit comes with USB 3.0 connection only so don't expect to find eSATA or FireWire connectors. As it is known the USB 3.0 is backward compatible so users with older systems could also benefit of having I-NA201U+. On one of the sides of the package we found a small graph describing the transfer speeds with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 and how they differ. It is clear that the USB 3.0 connection is roughly 5 times faster than the USB 2.0

Out of the box		USB 3.0 cable

Removing the I-NA201U+ out of the shipping box was pretty easy. Just a few pulls and everything came apart. The whole package includes a USB 3.0 cable, screwdriver for fast installations, stylish mesh pouch for easy and safe transport, user manual and of course the I-NA201U+ itself. The USB 3.0 cable is a little bit different from the USB 2.0 cable as it uses more power from the USB socket than previous versions of USB.

Front shot		Rear shot

I-NA201U+ is made from the aluminum casing which really helps with the accumulation of heat from the hard drive. On the back of the unit we found four small rubber feet that are used to keep the device in place while operation.

USB 3.0 connector		Stylish logo

As you can see from the picture above the USB 3.0 connector is located on the back of the unit. There are no power or reset buttons on I-NA201U+, just plug and go. On the top of the unit there are two LEDs, red and blue. These LEDs indicated the on/off state of the unit as well as the hard drive activity of I-NA201U+.

Installation		Beautiful finish

Ineo has included a bag of screws for fast installation of the hard drive. The whole installation took less than 2 minutes and we were pretty much ready for our benchmarking.

Testing

We have used Seagate Momentus ST9500323AS 500 Gb hard drive to benchmark I-NA201U+ unit. Our choice of applications is a HD Tune Pro 4.01 and HD Tach 3.0.4.0. With these tools we are hoping to see some of the major differences in speed increase with USB 3.0 connections.

HD Tune Read

Our Momentus hard drive has data on it and would be a perfect candidate to see actual read speeds of the I-NA201U+. Unfortunately we cannot perform write benchmark with HD Tune as it requires a blank hard drive. The maximum speeds of I-NA201U+ was 75.6 MB/s and the minimum speed of 15.3 MB/s. The average read speed was 57.9 MB/s This is roughly two times faster than USB 2.0. The access time wasn't all that impressive as we have gotten an 18.2 ms. The burst rate of the I-NA201U+ was 79.6 MB/s

HD Tach USB 3.0 8 MB vs 32 MB

Previous numbers didn't seem to right so we have re run the benchmarks with HD Tach and this time things look much better. The average read speed of I-NA201U+ was 63.4 MB/s with average burst speed of 118.95 MB/s. The access time is pretty slow for this drive as we have witnessed a 19.5 ms access speed.

Conclusion

After spending some time with I-NA201U+ we have became a ware of its potentials and grew to like it more and more. It is a great hard drive enclosure and the fact that you do not need any external power makes it all worth. The actual unit is very slick and keeps rather with operation. The aluminum body definitely helps with that. There isn't much to say about this enclosure rather than, it works! The USB 3.0 connection really does help with the transfer speeds. So if you are planning to use I-NA201U+ as a storage device for personal documents, mp3s or whatever, the USB 3.0 will greatly cut down on the transfer time and as we all know time is money. Our over all experience was very pleasant with I-NA201U+ and I do strongly believe that I-NA201U+ deserves a our highest rank! Great job guy!

Some pros we found:

Easy to set up and use.

USB 3.0 capable.

Slick design.

Fast transfer speeds.

Some cons we found:

None that we found.