A cool data companion!

External casings are widely used with laptop hard drives as portable data transfer solutions. The X Craft 250 is an eSATA/USB casing from Cooler Master; it promises to keep high-capacity  laptop hard drives cool.

Crafted in aluminium, the core design objective, like we said, is good thermal dissipation. The meshed screen running along two sides takes care of ventilation. The white paint provides a quality finish, as also decent fingerprint resistance.

Power-hungry laptop drives are addressed by the use of split USB cables. The eSATA connectivity makes for a high 3Gb/s transfer rate.

The USB cable or the 5V DC jack is used to power the case in the eSATA mode.

Cooler Master provides rubber grommets for attaching the hard drive to the PCB—a nifty touch; it also provides shock resistance. Mounting the hard drive is quite easy; also, Cooler Master has been generous enough to provide a little screw driver, screws, and the grommets. 

For our test, we used the WD SATA 250 GB 2500BEVS as the internal drive. The results were quite competitive. A 0.7 ms access time in SiSoft Sandra, along with a 17.8 ms random access time in HD Tach, highlights the fact that the internal controller will not be a bottleneck in the drive’s throughput. In the real-world 1 GB assorted test, the drive took 63 /47 / 89 seconds (to / from / within). In the case of sequential 1 GB single-file transfer, the drive took 45 / 36 / 84 seconds (to / from / within). Transferring 1 GB of assorted files simultaneously to and fro took 83 seconds.

The package bundle consists of the drive, a nice pouch, and the necessary backup software. We think it’s a good buy.

Specifications
Dimensions: 81 x 19 x 136 mm (W x H x D); weight: 140 gm; interface: USB 2.0/1.1; eSATA

RATINGS
Performance  3.5
Features    4
Ease of Use    4
Value for Money  3
Overall 3.5

Contact : SMC International
Phone : 98100 26658
Email : himanshu@amigointernational.biz
Web site : www.coolermaster.com
Price : Rs 1,560 (plus taxes)

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