Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
One of other things you might notice on the back is an ROHS logo. That means Eagle has not manufactured the device with Lead, Mercury, Cadium, Hexavalent Chromium, Polybrominated Biphenyls, and Polybrominated Dephenyl Ether. What does all that mean? It means they are doing their part to help out by not using any of those hazardous materials.
The disk transfer rates are limited by the speed of the USB bus so benchmarking is somewhat of a wash as the results will be greatly the same as many of the other drive enclosures. However, the trick they pull is with the backup button (OTB = One touch backup). This allows you to backup your computer to the drives or duplicate one of the drives to the other.
The install CD is not much to mention. A flash intro allows you to browse the CD to view the associated PDF guide and install some bonus software: a demo install of DiskDoctors, Acrobat Reader, Avast Antivirus for Home, and PcCloneEX. Unfortunately, the backup software that works with the backup button on the rear of the unit does not install on Windows Server so using the backup feature on WHS is out of the question… TOO BAD!
The ET-CSMDSU2-BK is an excellent design that flaunts some of the original ideas hosted by the folks at Eagle. The aluminum enclosure and intelligent dual bay design offers the user a greater usefulness. The ability to run the unit in JBOD mode or each disk independently allows for larger storage or a redundancy without RAID (copying from one drive to another). The software could use some revamping as many of the systems I encounter now are not running Windows XP.
The plastic bay doors could have been replaced with aluminum and done the unit a greater justice and the change from a key to a push button release for those doors is a welcome change from the single unit version. With all that said, and a price tag of around $40.00, you can’t go wrong. Keep up the good work Eagle.
