Hardware Bistro

Product: Shuttle ST; SHE-260ST
Manufacturer: Vizo
Supplied by: Vizo
Price: 35USD/RM123
Launch Date: NA

 

After reviewing a 3.5" SATA HDD external enclosure from Vizo, today we proceed with another SATA HDD external enclosure from Vizo but it is for 2.5" portable HDD; Shuttle ST. Nowaday 2.5" HDD is getting more and more popular as 2.5" HDD is pretty cheap nowaday and greater flexibility than 3.5" HDD which requires external power supply. Let us go through further on this Vizo Shuttle ST.

 

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.

 

Features

- Fashion and slim design
- Portable, flexible and convenient for your storage needs
- Aluminum case to provide the excellent heat dissipation
- Compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 standard
- Universal fitting for 2.5-inch SATA HDD
- Support plug and play & hot swappable
- LED light indicates working status
- USB powered device, no external power is required under low HDD power consumption

 

Specifications

- Interface : 480Mbps USB 2.0 ( USB 1.1 Compatible )
- HDD Type : 2.5 " SATA Hard Disk Drive
( Height : 9.5 mm, Maximum capacity up to 320G )
- Housing Material : Aluminum
- Safety Requirements : FCC, CE, EMI, EMS
- Weight : 90g ( without HDD )
- Dimensions : 139.5 (L) x 79(W) x 15.5(H) mm

 

System Requirement

- Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista or Mac OS 9 or above
- One available USB port
- Note : Driver needed for window 98/98SE
Click Here to download Win98 driver

 

Package Includes

- 2.5" HDD external enclosure ( HDD not included )
- USB Y Type Cable
- Screw fitting kit
- Pouch

NOTE : Extra power needed for high HDD power consumption.
10 Watts AC/DC Power Adapter is highly recommended.

 

Packaging

 

Vizo Shuttle ST comes with blue and black packaging not Vizo ordinary color; green and white. The packaging is pretty small and it is wrapped with another layer of plastic to seal up the whole packaging. The features and installation steps are described at the back of the packaging as Shuttle ST doesn't come with any user manual which shouldn't cause any problem for user because the installation is just a piece of cake.

 

After open up the box, the Shuttle ST enclosure is protected by another piece of plastic which suppose to protect the surface of the enclosure to avoid any scratches during shipping. Vizo Shuttle ST comes with 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure, USB Y type cable, 2 screws, Philips screwdriver and a pouch. No driver CD and user manual are required for XP and Vista; for Win98 OS, driver can be downloaded from Vizo website.

 

A soft pouch is provided which is quite good quality among the rest of the 2.5" HDD enclosure pouch that we have seen so far but we still prefer a soft case/bag is provided which will give better protection and looks much cooler. Two screws and Philips screwdriver are provided and will be better if Vizo will include additional one or two piece of screw in case the user loses it. As standard for 2.5" HDD external enclosure, a USB Y type cable is provided where the dual USB is required to be connected to the system in order to power up the external HDD unless you have additional power adapter for the external HDD enclosure.

 

Vizo Shuttle ST

 

Vizo has total five 2.5" external HDD enclosures of their product line and three of them are SATA version; Saturno, Shuttle ST and Shuttle II. Saturno is the highest end one among them which supports eSATA and One Touch Back up. Shuttle II and Shuttle ST are very similar in term of functionality but Shuttle ST is the newer version.

 

The design of Vizo Shuttle ST is very modern and charming especially the chromed bar. As usual, Vizo will use aluminum material for their HDD enclosures to maximize the heat dissipation and this is same for Vizo Shuttle ST where it is made by aluminum as well and the whole Shuttle ST is coated with black surface to protect from being scratches and able to avoid the thumbprint as well.

 

The front and back caps of Vizo Shuttle ST are made by plastic in grey color. For the back cap, there is one 5-pin mini USB port and one power DC5V power connector. Vizo recommends users to use add-on 10 watts power adaptor for high HDD power consumption and for those systems don't have real USB2.0 ports. No eSATA port is available for Vizo Shuttle ST is a drawback for certain users as it can transfer the data up to 3.0Gbps. Good to see if VIzo will have another version of Shuttle ST in future which supports eSATA to enlarge the variety.  

 

At the back of the Vizo Shuttle ST, there are four plastic stands for the HDD enclosure to avoid scratches on the surface during horizontal placement. The plastic stands do not really work well so will prefer some soft material like rubber to protect the HDD as well as to reduce the noise. Besides that at the bottom of the Vizo Shuttle ST, there are three convex lines to make the HDD enclosure more stable while in vertical stand mode.

 

Unlike the 3.5" external HDD enclosure, 2.5" external HDD enclosure doesn't require any screw to secure the HDD on the PCB of the HDD enclosure since 2.5" HDD is quite light. There isn't any special or unique lightning LED for Vizo Shuttle ST but just comes with a yellow LED on the back cap PCB.

 

Inside the Vizo Shuttle ST, there are three pieces of small foams to ensure the HDD is placed firmly inside the enclosure. Here is the snapshot of Vizo Shuttle ST inside the incoming pouch. Since Vizo Shuttle ST is a high end enclosure so we will prefer Vizo to include a thicker pouch or a bag if possible to protect the HDD better in case any dropping.

 

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: HD Tech 3.0

 

Installation is very simple where user just needs to insert the 2.5" SATA HDD into the SATA connector of the Vizo Shuttle ST back cap. After that two screws are required to lock and secure the back cap with the enclosure body. That all and everything is very straight forward and even without user manual also not a problem for a newbie.

Here is a snapshot of Vizo Shuttle ST during operating and there is a yellow LED for the HDD power on status and a dim red LED will be flashing during the HDD accessing.

For the performance, basically nothing much we can discuss and show here as we have tested few 2.5" SATA HDD enclosures and the results are very close to each other so we will skip the stressing on the performance comparison here furthermore eSATA is not supported else we can show a comparison between eSATA and USB2.0 for the average read, random access and write access results. Overall Vizo Shuttle ST is working very well in term of performance, heat dissipation, noise and etc.

 

Conclusion

Vizo Shuttle ST is a very charming 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure with its stylish and simple design. The aluminum and black coated surface is good for heat dissipation and will not be a problem for thumbprint and scratches which are the common problems for aluminum external HDD enclosure. Although it isn't support eSATA but it should be not a problem for most of the users as eSATA is still not yet widely being used especially for laptop users. With its MSRP at 35USD, it is not really expensive for a branded 2.5 SATA HDD enclosure which always comes with better quality compare with those unbranded one especially Vizo products where it always comes with excellent quality and design.

Pros:
* Aluminum casing with black coated surface
* Simple & Charming design
* Comes with complete kit & nice packaging

Cons:
* Not support eSATA

 

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

 

 

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