CMS Velocity 200GB External SATA Drive
It’s like having an internal drive outside your PC!
W
ith Serial ATA’s blazing-fast transfer speeds and hot-swapping
skills, it has the potential to steal the show from the current
crop of USB and FireWire backup drives. Take for exam-
ple CMS’ Velocity drive, the world’s first SATA external drive. It
is one smokin’ mutha.
In other words, it’s just as fast as a top-of-the-line
internal SATA drive, which makes perfect sense
as it connects to an internal SATA port on your
motherboard or a PCI add-in card. The drive includes a
pass-through adapter that fits into an empty slot hole
on your PC case; a cable connects the pass-through
adapter to an internal SATA port on one end, and a
second cable connects the pass-through to the exter-
nal drive. A 200GB Maxtor drive with an 8MB buffer
and a 7,200rpm rotational velocity comes wrapped in the silver plastic that
adorns almost every external ATA backup drive on the market these days.
And—big surprise—the CMS Velocity features blue LEDs, one for power,
one for activity.
During testing, the drive ran lickety-split and demonstrated access
times that were remarkably faster than its USB/FireWire brethren, which
makes the backup process a heckuva lot faster. And because this is a
SATA drive, you can clone your primary drive to it and boot off the external
drive if your primary ever fails. Indeed, this is the only “real” advantage to
using the SATA interface. Because you need the pass-through adapter to
move the drive to another computer, it’s not super portable.
Backup duties are performed by BounceBack Express, a decent backup util-
ity. It has all the features of more sophisticated backup programs, but its inter-
face is a little unwieldy. For example, rather than being able to perform several
different backup tasks from a single interface, the program divvies all its func-
tions into several different mini-apps. It’s not that big an inconvenience—a
quick launch applet resides in the system tray—but it’s still annoying.
Our other gripe is the
CMS drive’s price: A $550
MSRP (street is about $100
less) is damn expensive.
For that kind of money we’d
rather have a 400GB Hitachi
Deskstar as an internal
backup drive —it’s twice
as big and just as portable.
—JOSH NOREMSeagate External USB/FireWire 160GB Drive
A streamlined approach to storage that doesn’t
cost an arm and a leg
U
nlike the Western Digital Media Center we reviewed last
month or the Serial ATA backup drive reviewed above, this
Seagate backup drive doesn’t have any fancy specs. It’s
sort of like a German shepherd police dog that doesn’t talk or drive
cars—it performs capably, but there are clearly more talented dogs in
Hollywood. Is that a bad thing? We don’t think so, particularly because
while the Seagate drive is smaller than other drives we’ve tested, it’s also
the most affordable backup drive on the market.
Let’s take a look at the package. Housed inside the silver plastic shell is
a 160GB Seagate drive that spins its little platters at 7,200rpm. It packs an
8MB buffer and includes a USB 2.0 interface as well as dual FireWire ports
for daisy-chaining. The drive comes with an optional vertical stand and fea-
tures a rubber ring on top that accommodates the piggy-backing of an addi-
tional Seagate external drive (it also makes a great CD holder). The front
of the drive features a single button that triggers a pre-selected backup
routine, as well as two orange lights for power and activity. A power switch
resides on the drive’s rear, though you won’t need to turn it
off as it’s virtually silent.
Like the SATA drive reviewed above, Seagate’s drive uses
BounceBack Express for backup duties. In case you didn’t read the other
review—shame on you!—we’ll repeat that it’s a capable software pack-
age, if a bit unintuitive.
In lab tests, we experienced zero problems with the hardware, but had
one small issue with the software. Even after performing our first backup to
the Seagate drive, the push-button backup wouldn’t work because the soft-
ware kept failing to recognize the drive.
Overall, this is a good choice
for price-conscious folks. It’s
not as big or as sophisticated
as other drives on the market,
but it does what it’s supposed
to with relative ease, and the
USB/FireWire interfaces make
it compatible with most PCs and
Macs in existence.
—JOSH NOREMVery fast, on the cusp of technology, easy to use.SILVERSLIVER
Pricey, and software is a tad unintuitive.
$550, http://www.cmsproducts.comMAXIMUMPC VERDICT 8
Covers all the bases, is affordable, and sports a
sleek exterior.PUPPIESYUPPIES
Software is not intuitive.
$250, http://www.seagate.comMAXIMUMPC VERDICT 8
Seagate’s
external drive
is a backup
workhorse that
trades bells and
whistles for good
old-fashioned
simplicity.Reviews
ith Serial ATA’s blazing-fast transfer speeds and hot-swapping
skills, it has the potential to steal the show from the current
crop of USB and FireWire backup drives. Take for exam-
ple CMS’ Velocity drive, the world’s first SATA external drive. It
In other words, it’s just as fast as a top-of-the-linemotherboard or a PCI add-in card. The drive includes a
pass-through adapter that fits into an empty slot hole
on your PC case; a cable connects the pass-through
adapter to an internal SATA port on one end, and a
second cable connects the pass-through to the exter-
nal drive. A 200GB Maxtor drive with an 8MB buffer
and a 7,200rpm rotational velocity comes wrapped in the silver plastic that
ity. It has all the features of more sophisticated backup programs, but its inter-
face is a little unwieldy. For example, rather than being able to perform several
different backup tasks from a single interface, the program divvies all its func-
tions into several different mini-apps. It’s not that big an inconvenience—aAlthough the Serial ATA 1.0 spec doesn’t
“officially” allow for external usage, CMS blazes
a path with the first external SATA drive on the
market. A pass-through adapter (pictured on the left)
lets you attach the drive to your mobo.JUNE 2004 MAXIMUMPC 83
6.5“4.5“
8“2.25“7.125“1.5“