Hardware Bistro

Product: Luxon Advanced SD; LUS-360
Manufacturer: Vizo
Supplied by: Vizo
Price: USD65/RM228
Launch Date: NA

As the storage is getting cheaper nowadays, many people are more willing to get an additional HDD to store or backup their files, documents, and of course another reason will be easily data transfer. External HDD requires a HDD enclosure in order to work properly and protect the HDD. Vizo sent us their latest products; Luxon Advanced SD which is a HDD enclosure for 3.5” SATA HDD.

Company Profile

VIZO Technology Corporation is a leading global manufacturer and designer of computer peripheral products serving customers around the world. Established in Taiwan in 1992, VIZO has expanded and now operates in the market completely reorganized and prepared to meet the demand for high quality products which are "Made in Taiwan".

We have the best team and own completely innovative technology. Our company's philosophy is simple: share results among the employees, build trust with our customers, maximize efficiency in our work and innovation in our designs. Utilizing many years of experience and a mature skill set, VIZO is able to provide PC users an incredible variety of "Do It Yourself" products and peripherals.

Pursuing growth, efficiency and innovation has always been the essence of VIZO's research and product development. Our goal for the near future is to constantly strive for technological advances and perfection in product quality. During our daily searching for new ideas, our growing company continues to supply additional features to our flashy products and constantly reaches for the leading position in the global market.

In addition, VIZO embraces changes for our customers, partners and even for ourselves. Our flexibility enables us to adapt to various customer necessities at any time and our technology assists our clients in expanding their market share rapidly. VIZO offers solutions that are designed to provide the overall capabilities and specific flexibility to meet, if not exceed our customers' requirements. VIZO's fully dedicated sales team and engineers are always working to deliver our clients effectively maximum customer satisfaction.

Quality, liability and excellence: That's VIZO!

 

Features

- Compatible with 3.5"SATA Hard Drive
- Support 480Mbps High Speed USB 2.0 and USB 1.1
- Aluminum housing for excellent heat dissipation
- Side vents improve convection for better system cooling
- Support plug and play & hot swappable
- LED light indicates working status and file transfer
- Stylish outlook with sleek design

 

Specifications

- Case Material : Aluminum
- Host Interface: 480Mbps USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 Compatible)
- HDD Type : 3.5 " SATA Hard Drive ( Maximum capacity up to 1.5TB )
- Power Supply : AC/DC Power Adapter
( AC input: 100~ 240Vac , DC output: +12V, 2A )
- Indicators : Blue for Power on / Purple for file access 　
- Available colors : Black, Blue, Silver
- Model No. : LUS-360-BK, LUS-360-BL, LUS-360-GY
- Weight : 400 g (without HDD)
- Dimensions : 210 (L) x 125 (W) x 34 (H) mm

 

System Requirement

- Windows 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP / Vista or Mac 8.6 & above
- One USB port available for USB Host
- Note : Driver needed for window 98/98SE
Click Here to download Win98 driver

 

Package Includes

- 3.5" SATA Hard Drive External Enclosure
- Stand
- USB Cable
- Power Adapter
- Screw Fitting Kit
- Cleaning Cloth
- User Manual

 

Packaging

 

As usual Vizo product comes with good packaging to protect their products and this is same for Vizo Luxon Advanced SD. There is a big sticker to indicate the color of the Vizo Luxon Advanced SD at the front packaging box. All the product description, features, specifications, system requirement, package includes are stated clearly at the back of the packaging box.

 

Vizo Luxon Advanced SD is protected very well by two good quality foams and a plastic bag to avoid any scratches during transportation. Adapter is packed in another smaller box and the rest of the accessories are located at the right corner of the packaging box.

  

Here are all the full kit of Vizo Luxon Advanced SD; HDD enclosure, enclosure stand, power adapter, USB cables, user manual, cleaning cloth, hexagon screw driver and 12 screws of cross socket & hexagon socket (2 screws extra for each type of screws).

 

 

Vizo Luxon Advanced SD

  

Luxon is Vizo basic 3.5" HDD enclosure and Luxon Advanced is newer version of Luxon. There are our versions for Luxon Advanced; basic (IDE or SATA), SD (SATA), HD (IDE) and ED (SATA, eSATA) and there are 3 colors available; black, grey and blue. Our review sample is a black Luxon Advanced SD which is for 3.5" SATA HDD. Vizo Luxon Advanced SD casing is made by aluminum which will help for better heat dissipation and the finishing is very nice as you can see that the whole HDD enclosure casing is very shinning and glossy.

 

Vizo Luxon Advanced SD is not completely made by aluminum as the grey portion of the HDD enclosure is made by plastic. This could help to reduce the enclosure weight and cost but it will not really  affect the heat dissipation as that plastic built area isn't that much. There is a long acrylic at the center of the top of Vizo Luxon Advanced SD which is the LED indication for showing the HDD activity. At the bottom of the front bezel, there is a Vizo logo and if this logo is lighten up then it will be much more charming.

  

At the back of Vizo Luxon Advanced SD, there are one ON/OFF switch, mini 5 pins USB port and a power supply port. As Vizo Luxon Advanced SD isn't support eSATA so there is an empty port beside the mini 5 pins USB port. Overall the design of Vizo Luxon Advanced SD is pretty simple, neat and good looking. With its glossy surface, Vizo has provided a piece of cleaning cloth for user to clean up the HDD enclosure from time to time especially the thumbprint.

 

At the bottom of Vizo Luxon Advanced SD, there are additional ventilation holes to cool down the HDD further. However it would be better to have these ventilation holes on top of the HDD enclosure because hot air will always move upward since Vizo Luxon Advanced SD was designed to be used in vertical placement.

 

Basically Vizo Luxon Advanced SD has two parts; aluminum casing and plastic HDD holder. The plastic HDD holder needs to be taken out from aluminum casing in order to install the hard drive on it. The LED is powered up with one dual color LED; blue and purple. Blue when HDD is powered up but in idle stage and purple when HDD is being accessed either read or write.

 

The plastic HDD holder has some rectangular holes which should be for better heat dissipation. At the end of the plastic HDD holder, there is a PCB board with some basic electronic components. The LED has a connector on the PCB and it makes easily for certain people would like to modify the LED to change to other LED with different colors; remember this could void the warranty.

 

Here is the stand for Vizo Luxon Advanced SD which is made by plastic and we found that it is a bit soft so would prefer a harder one or aluminum holder which will not easily get broken and looks nicer as well. At the bottom of the stand, there are some rubber feet to help to hold the HDD enclosure firmly on the surface.

The stand is only allow Vizo Luxon Advanced SD to be placed in vertically and due to the side casing panels doesn't have any rubber feet so it is not advisable for user to place this HDD enclosure horizontally as the casing might get scratches.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

Test Bed
Notebook : Dell Inspiron E1720
Processor : Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T7500
Memory : 2GB 666MHz DDR2 Memory
Hard Drive : 120GB 2.5" 5400RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card : Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS
Optical Drive : DVD RW
Operating System : Microsoft Window XP SP2
Benchmark Software : Prime 95

 

Installation will take a while but user manual has stated the work instruction clearly. User need to install the hard drive on the plastic HDD holder with four cross socket screws.

 

After that the plastic HDD holder need to be slotted in the aluminum casing and screw with four hexagon screws with the incoming hexagon screw driver which would give better protection as this screw is not so common as Philips or Cross screw. When screwing this hexagon screw, a little bit force is required as the hexagon screw driver is quite short.

 

Here is the complete installation for Vizo Luxon Advanced SD. Everything looks perfect but little thing need to be improved here is the stand as the HDD enclosure can't fit very firmly on the stand; a bit loose.

 

The long HDD activity LED bar looks very cool; blue for idle condition and purple for active condition.

Here is the benchmark snapshot for a Seagate 250GB 7200RPM HDD with Vizo Luxon Advanced SD. The result is quite average for SATA HDD enclosure and eSATA connection would give better result.

 

Conclusion

Overall Vizo Luxon Advanced SD delivers all the external HDD enclosure that it suppose to have and its stylish outlook should able to gain additional points from customer. However the price for Vizo Luxon Advanced SD isn't cheap as it costs around 65USD; what you pay is what you get so a good quality product will always cost higher. Not willing to spend too much on a 2.5" HDD then Vizo Luxon Advanced is one of your choices or Ii you require an external HDD enclosure with IDE or eSATA features then you also can consider Luxon Advanced HD or ED which will have similar functions as Luxon Advanced SD.

 

Pros:
* Aluminum casing for better heat dissipation
* Integrated adapter within the power socket plug
* Hexagon screws for better security

Cons:
* HDD enclosure stand could be more strengthen
* Not cheap

 

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

 

 

 

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