Hardware Bistro

Product: Airbox
Manufacturer: Sunbeam
Supplied by: Sunbeam
Price: 40USD/RM140
Launch Date: NA

 

External storage is one of the common ways to solve the inadequate internal storage capacity issue especially when the storage is getting cheaper and become value nowadays in this fast moving industry. Today we will take a look on Sunbeam Airbox which is a 3.5" external SATA HDD enclosure. Some of the attractive features of Sunbeam Airbox are the aluminum housing, eSATA connectivity, active cooling and so on.

 

Company Profile

Sunbeam Company, a true art innovator in the field of PC modification and accessories at all aspect, targets on providing the top quality and state of art computer products to high tech PC users. We dedicate outstanding high quality control as our number one priority and deliver the products with the highest level of excellent Performance, as well as the coolest Innovation and an Appearance that draws your attention. Sunbeam Company has manufacturing factories located in Dongguan City, China.

In order to provide exceptional product quality combined with superior customer support, we keep updating and advancing ourselves to meet the diverse changes and increasing market demands. We strive to continue designing and developing ground-breaking, exciting, and appealing products as well as being the one stop resource and solution for all computer enthusiasts seeking to turn their ingenious visions into the coolest and fanciest reality.

 

Features

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

Sunbeam Airbox is packed with a pretty giant packaging box since 3.5" external HDD enclosure is much bigger than 2.5" external HDD enclosure. Features, specifications and some data transfer rate & temperature comparisons are shown at the back of the cardboard box.

 

Besides the outer soft cover box, Sunbeam Airbox is packed with another harder white cardboard box for better protection. Besides the Sunbeam Airbox external HDD enclosure, other accessories are included are eSATA cable, USB cable, power adapter, user's manual, enclosure stand and some installation screws.

 

The user's manual is a small colorful booklet where it covers most of the notes that end user needs to know about. Sunbeam chose a small single power adapter for Airbox which is absolutely great since it doesn't occupy much space. Besides that two long data transfer cables are included; eSATA and USB.

 

A Closer Look: Sunbeam Airbox

Sunbeam was founded in 2000 and they have been active in the computer industry especially with their acrylic case, cooler, lightning accessories and etc. However Sunbeam has just stepped in another new sector lately which is HDD enclosure; Airbox and HDD docking station are their first two products. Both of these HDD enclosures are quite different in term of design and layout but basically they serve the same purpose as an external HDD enclosure.

 

The overall dimension of Sunbeam Airbox is 203 x 126 x 44 mm (L x W x H) which is pretty bulky when comparing with any 2.5" external HDD enclosure but both of these 3.5" and 2.5" external HDD enclosures have their own advantages as well as disadvantages. The exact weight of Sunbeam Airbox is around 435g which is pretty light since the enclosure housing is made by aluminum material.

 

The front panel design of Sunbeam Airbox is quite simple where it only comes with a long acrylic status bar while the rear panel comes with plenty of air vents, connectors and switches. Those connectors are power input, eSATA and USB ports; great to see eSATA connectivity for Sunbeam Airbox since eSATA provides greater data transfer rate than USB; 3Gbps VS 480Mbps in ideal condition. The two switches of Sunbeam Airbox are for powering up the HDD and the blue LED lightning.

 

Same with other external HDD enclosures, Sunbeam Airbox is made by aluminum housing which is perfect for heat dissipation and the finishing is extremely fine. Besides that an plastic enclosure stand is provided so that Sunbeam Airbox can be placed vertically but if possible we hope to see a more quality stand so that Sunbeam Airbox will be much professional; something nice to have.

 

Something unique about Sunbeam Airbox when compares with other external HDD enclosures is the active cooling fan which is always forgotten by other external HDD enclosure makers. This active cooling fan is a 80mm blue LED fan where its blue LED lightning can be switched on & off as not everyone will like this lightning all the time; a very caring consideration.

 

The inner tray of Sunbeam Airbox is attached together with the rear panel where the whole inner tray can be pulled out from the aluminum housing by removing two screws. Since Sunbeam Airbox is a 3.5" external HDD enclosure, a solid tray is required to secure such heavy 3.5" HDD as such tray is not available for most of the 2.5" external HDD enclosures due to much lighter weight.

 

Basically the inner tray of Sunbeam Airbox is made by plastic which is not that solid as aluminum or other metal material but this is quite common since it helps to keep the product cost as low as possible and most of us shouldn't care much as long as it performs. Anyway the cooling fan is located at the other side of the HDD placement for keeping the enclosure as slim as possible.

 

As we mentioned before, Sunbeam Airbox is equipped with 80mm cooling fan which has 11 transparent fan blades so that the blue LED lightning can be lighten up the whole cooling fan. This cooling fan is having around 1600RPM which is pretty high speed for a HDD enclosure but no noise information is given so we will find it out in later section. Each of the fan's corner has one blue LED so that the lightning will be much balanced and looks nicer.

 

Here is the PCB of Sunbeam Airbox where it is a small green PCB with minimal components since external HDD enclosure is a pretty simple device where the major component will be the SATA link for such SATA HDD enclosure. On the left of the PCB, there are three connections for front status bar, cooling fan and the fan LED lightning. The LED lightning can be switch on & off as different people will have different requirement at different moment.

Sunbeam has chosen SunplusIT SPIF303 as the SATALINK for Airbox. Basically SunplusIT SPIF303 is compliant with USB2.0 (480Mbps) and Seria-ATA 1.0A (1.5Gb/s) specifications which is ideal for USB enclosure application, enclosures, mobile rack and docking station.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Installation for Sunbeam Airbox is extremely easy where the whole process should take less than 10 minutes or even faster for a skillful user. First of all the 3.5" SATA HDD needs to be mounted on the tray then connect it firmly with the SATA + SATA power connector of Sunbeam Airbox. After that user needs to secure the HDD on the tray with 4 screws.

 

Next will be slotting back the whole tray with the HDD into the aluminum housing and there is only one way insertion where the HDD has to be facing downward; assuming the fan air vent of the aluminum housing is facing upward. Once it is done then it is time to power on the Sunbeam Airbox and we absolutely love the blue LED cooling fan as most of the external HDD enclosure is pretty boring due to limitation of the creativity; thanks to Sunbeam R&D team for bringing such beautiful external HDD enclosure.

 

Test Bed

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 (Gigabyte G31M-ES2L)
Heatsink: Noctua NH-C12P
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX260+
Casing: In Win Maelstrom
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2/Vista Home Premium
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Here are the performance benchmarks of Sunbeam Airbox with both USB2.0 and eSATA setup. Based on the results that we obtained, basically both of these setup benchmark results are quite close which is a bit disappointed as we should expect it much faster for the eSATA setup and based on our experience, it should get around 80Mbps for the reading. Anyway the USB reading & writing speeds are standard and same with other 3.5" external SATA HDD enclosure. In term of cooling performance of Sunbeam Airbox, it is pretty amazing where it is able to cool down the HDD around 4°C; effortless and the cooling fan is operating with very minimal noise where we didn't hear any annoying noise during the whole testing period except the HDD mechanism noise which is expected unless go for SSD which is absolutely noiseless.

 

Verdicts

Overall we are quite satisfied with Sunbeam Airbox with its great design and decent cooling performance. Besides that the aluminum housing of Sunbeam Airbox is great for heat dissipation although the material cost is much higher since an active cooling fan is already integrated. Both the USB2.0 and eSATA connectivity are included but the eSATA performance is just above average than the USB2.0; hope to see some improvement in next product respin. Last but not least we are happy to see the switchable blue LED lightning of the cooling fan which gives better flexibility for the users and no doubt it is a very charming lightning. 

 

Pros: 

+ eSATA & USB2.0 Connectivity
+ Active cooling system
+ Switchable blue LED lightning
+ Stylish aluminum housing

Cons:

- eSATA performance could be further improved 

Thanks to Sunbeam for providing this sample for us to review.

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