MaximumPC 2005 06

Reviews

74 MA XIMUMPC JUNE 2005

T

he ARAID 2000 is a two-drive RAID enclosure for either SATA

or PATA drives that occupies two 5.25-inch internal bays in

your PC. Each drive is housed within a lockable, removable tray.

With the drives screwed into the trays, you insert the trays into the

enclosure and lock each shut with the turn of a key. You’ll need the

right type of trays for your drives—they’re available in both parallel

ATA and Serial ATA formats—and the entire enclosure connects to

your PC using a single PATA or SATA cable. In operation, it functions like

a hot-swappable RAID 1 array that’s always ready for action.

Here’s how it works: You put your bootable drive in the top bay, then

connect the enclosure to your PC using either a PATA or SATA cable.

Upon boot, the PC recognizes your hard drive as if it were directly con-

nected to the mobo. Once the system is up and running, you simply insert

the second drive into the bottom tray and it begins to copy everything

from the first drive. Once the copying operation is complete (it trans-

fers about 30GB an hour), you have a fully functioning mirrored RAID 1

array. This is really, really cool—using a typical RAID controller, you’d

have to wipe both drives and start over from scratch to set up a RAID

1 array. Alternatively, you can run the unit in “single drive” mode, and

Accordance tells us that RAID 0 support will also be offered via a firm-

ware update by the time you read this.

The only major downside to the ARAID 2000 is noise. The internal

70mm fan is way too loud. It’s louder than a CPU cooler, which is ridicu-

lous. Also, the SATA host adapter degrades performance. In HD Tach ,

we saw average seek times on our test drive drop from 13.2ms to 18.4ms

when run from the ARAID. Read times also dipped a smidge from a maxi-

mum average of 52.3MB/s to 49MB/s. Performance felt the same, but

benchmarks showed otherwise.

Despite these two flaws,

there’s not much to really

criticize here. The ARAID

delivers on all its promises

and is a slick and easy way

to add data redundancy to

your current rig, if you can

stomach the price tag.

—JOSH NOREM

Reviews

Easy to use; best way to add RAID 1 to your system.

Fan is too loud; slightly diminished performance.

$370, http://www.accordancesystems.com

8

RAID 1

POLICE RAID

MA XIMUMPCVERDICT

Y

ou know you’re a hardcore geek when you begin reminiscing

about the good-ole days you spent with an ATX enclosure,

but it happened this month when the Praetorian 730, aka the

Wave Master 2, arrived in the Lab. As successor to the beloved

Wave Master, the silly-named Praetorian has big shoes to fill, but

it largely succeeds in improving the formula.

Although the front bezel has undergone some cosmetic

change, the interior of the case remains basically the same as

the previous design. A thick aluminum door now spans the front

of the case from top to bottom. Its winged design allows ample

airflow, an improvement over the original Wave Master. Behind

the door are four 5.25-inch bays, two external 3.25-inch bays,

and a 120mm intake fan covered by an easily removable mesh

grille with an air filter.

The Praetorian 730 also features a revamped exhaust scheme.

Instead of relying on just a single 80mm exhaust fan, two of these

suckers now blow hot air out the back of the case. Cooler Master

also added a small plastic shroud over the CPU area, but if you’re

using a tall aftermarket heatsink/fan combo, the shroud might

prohibit the case door from closing. Top-mounted USB, FireWire,

and audio jacks are unchanged from the previous version, and the

power, reset, and activity lights have fortunately been relocated to

the top of the case as well, allowing easy access to all.

Sadly, Cooler Master didn’t add a tool-less drive-mounting system

to its newest offering. The Praetorian’s internal drive bays require

screws for mounting. Sure, screws provide the most secure mount-

ing option for optical and hard drives, but we’d rather have the con-

venience that a tool-less

mounting mechanism provides.

We dig the newly rede-

signed Wave Master. Its

improved airflow scheme is a

big plus, and while we’d prefer

a more modern tool-less design

for the drive bays, it’s still a

mid-tower any of us would be

proud to own.

—JOSH NOREM

Cooler Master Praetorian 730^

The vaunted Wave Master gets a face-lift

All-aluminum construction, removable

mobo tray, and superb cooling.

Screws required to mount drives, and interior

can get a little cramped.

$160 ($150 for silver), http://www.coolermaster.com

9

BEZEL

BEELZEBUB

MA XIMUMPCVERDICT

Accordance ARAID 2000^

A cagey device that protects your data

The ARAID is hot-swappable,

so with Windows running you can slide a drive into the

second bay and have a fully functional RAID 1 array.

venience that a tool-less

The new Wave

Master boasts

subtle design

changes

geared

towards

improved

airflow and

cooling.