I
f every other external enclosure we’ve reviewed has been a Chevy Nova, then
Norco’s DS-500 external SATA storage, um, block is easily a Humvee. For this
device not only performs solidly but also weighs as much as everyone’s favorite
urban assault vehicle. And that’s before we stuffed five hard drives into it.
Setting up the DS-500 couldn’t be easier. Although we encountered
some sharp edges on the five hot-swappable drive trays as we went to
extract them from the hulking chassis, this is a nitpicky complaint; you lit-
erally just pull out a tray, slap a hard drive onto it, and stuff it back into the
DS-500. By default, Windows immediately recognizes each drive as its own
separate entity.
If you want to get a fancy RAID configuration up and running, Norco
makes the process painless. Using the included CD, you just flash the
device’s onboard BIOS to a RAID configuration, and voila!—the included
SataRAID5 software takes care of the rest. And if BIOS-flashing isn’t your
thing, Windows’ default disk-management utility will do the same job.
We raise a frosty mug in the air to Norco’s inclusion of an eSATA PCI/
PCI-X controller card with the DS-500. While a number of “next-gen” cases
are arriving with eSATA ports built right into the front I/O panels, it’s good to
see that those without such electronic accoutrements won’t get left in the
dark. And since the controller has four ports, it should surely fit the exter-
nal-storage needs of even the biggest power users.
One concern we have with the DS-500 is that it’s strangely quiet for
an enclosure—normally, that’s a good thing. In this case, however, it means
not a lot of internal cooling is going on. Sure, the device comes with a9.2cm fan, but we’re not entirely convinced that it’s big enough to chill five
hard drives at once.
If money’s no object, the DS-500 should suit your storage needs per-
fectly. Stick five drives in there, and it could even double as a
wheel stop for your jet.
—DAVID MURPHYNorco DS-500
This hard-drive enclosure is no beauty, but it’s no beast, either
I
f your receipt-organization strategy is to stuff slips of paper in your wallet
until it won’t fit in your back pocket, it may be time to harness technology
and get organized.
The NeatReceipts Scanalizer will help you do just that. Using a sheet-fed
600dpi USB color scanner, the Scanalizer makes keeping track of your receipts
not just easy but—dare we say it—fun. To test the Scanalizer, we grabbed a
stack of receipts—crushed, wadded up, and flatted by coworkers—and then
scanned them. The process and results were problem-free.
But the fun really starts with the Scanalizer application, which will auto-
matically record and store the merchant’s name, the date, and the amount
paid. The app stores grayscale scans of the original receipt and can also create
rudimentary reports based on how you’ve classified each receipt. Was one pur-
chase for a Dream Machine project while another was for a budget PC? You can
keep it straight with the Scanalizer.
The application also does double duty as a business-card scanner and
document organizer. Cards and docs can be scanned in color, but receipts are
kept in grayscale to “save space,” which is too bad. We’d prefer an option to
enable color scans for folks with spacious hard drives.
Not all was perfect with the product. We found the interface to be a little
clumsy and unintuitive. Moving receipts from one folder to the other, for exam-
ple, requires a cut-and-paste command instead of a simple drag-and-drop.
We also think it’s clumsy to move from the business-card software module to
the receipt module—the entire app feels like it needs a central starting point.
We also couldn’t figure out how to manually key in tips on dining bills withoutchanging the amount paid.
Optimally, we’d like to
track both how much we
paid and how much we
tipped. The app lets you
automatically add a tip
based on a percentage of,
say, 15 percent, but what
about that one time the
waitress filled our coffee
cup only six times?
These are fairly minor
quibbles though. We were
very impressed by the per-
formance of the Scanalizer.
—GoRDon MAH UnGNeatReceipts Scanalizer
It’s time to empty out that shoebox full of receipts
74 MAXIMUMPC april 2007
reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized
The DS-500 isn’t the prettiest drive enclosure on the market, but
it gets the job done with no questions, concerns, or crashes.The Scanalizer orga-
nizes your receipts
and does double duty
as a business card
scanner.9
scanalizer
$230, http://www.neatreceipts.com8
norco ds-500
$500, http://www.norcotek.com