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Who says you can never have enough storage. Well you really can not have too much. I myself have a few different computers around my house for different tasks, and I like to back them up and also share files over the network. External hard drives and enclosures are a great tool for keeping around your house or even on the go. There are so many different enclosures and NAS boxes on the market. Some do RAID, other’s do JBOD, some can hold only 1 drive and some can go up to 4 drives. Some of the cool things with the technology of the past few years is that we now have eSATA and USB 3.0. USB 3.0 offers up to 5 Gbps while eSATA offers less speed at around 3 Gbps. So today we will be reviewing the Vantec NexStar HX2R dual SATA Hard Drive Enclosure, so stick around and see if it would make a nice addition to your desk or office.
Today I have with me one of Vantec’s latest upgrades to one of their more popular external enclosure solutions: the NexStar HX4. The NexStar HX4 is a quad-bay storage solution with USB 3.0 and eSATA interfaces. The HX4 lacks some features such as RAID, but makes up for it with a quad-bay classic individual drive mode enclosure. This makes the HX4 afantastic external enclosure for the home or small office. Let's take a closer look at the Vantec NexStar HX4.
Roughly five years ago we first reviewed the Vantec NexStar MX hard drive enclosure. The NexStar MX was a stylish looking, dual drive RAID enclosure which featured USB 2.0 connectivity. Since that time, the NexStar MX has remained on the market as a good priced, good quality dual drive USB 2.0 enclosure. However, over the last five years a lot has changed with external storage. New interfaces like eSATA and USB 3.0 have quickly made the "slow" speed USB 2.0 almost extinct. To meet the demands of this ever evolving market, Vantec has taken the popular NexStar MX and revised it to now feature USB 3.0 and eSATA connectivity. Without any further adieu, let's see what the new and improved NexStar MX is all about!
The Vantec NexStar hard drive WiFi dock fits standard 3.5” or 2.5” drives. The NexStar WiFi dock is capable of high-speed USB 3.0 transfers as well as offering wireless support for 802.11 b/g/n standards with transfer rates of up to 150 Mbit/s. Accessible on iOS or Android devices through the Vantec WiFi App, the NexStar WiFI dock also supports Access Point Internet tethering and WEP/WPA/WPA2 security. Media playback of H.264, mov, mp4, mpv, 3gp, m4v, aac, mp3, m4a, aif, and wave are supported as well as jpeg, png, gif, tif, bmp, and tiff image files. The Vantec NexStar WiFi dock comes with a 1-year limited warranty.
Vantec has been on a roll lately with their NexStar line of storage products, and their USB 3.0 dual bay HDD dock is no exception. What stands out with this unit is the ability to access two hard drives simultaneously – something that is handy for all types of buyers ranging from the casual home PC user to network admins who need a quick way to access data on a hard drive.
Why is USB 3.0 a big deal? Well to some it might not be... yet. It is rather new, so not many machines out there have it. If your machine doesn't have it, providing you have the room in your case, you can get an adapter card. USB 2.0 has a peak speed of 480MB/sec while USB 3.0 has a peak speed of 5Gb/sec. Those numbers speak for themselves. In this case Vantec revised their SATA to USB 2.0 adapter that connects to the back of a drive.
I’ve taken a look at many external hard drive enclosures in my time, but none quite like the one I’ve got for review today. The Vantec NexStar Vault is an enclosure for a 2.5” SATA hard drive, but as the name might suggest, it makes your secure. The Vault does this by incorporating a numerical keypad into it, you must enter a six digit combination to access the drive. It’s much more than that tough, the Vault automatically formats your drive half public and half private, so the end user really just has to put the drive in and that’s it. It can’t get much easier than that really.
External hard drive enclosures are a dime-a-dozen. They come in all shapes, sizes, capacities, and colors with interface connections ranging from USB 2.0 and the new USB 3.0 to eSATA. However, very few hard drive enclosures let you untether from the enclosure itself and take your information to the cloud. Vantec’s latest edition to their NexStar external hard drive enclosure allows you to do just that by giving you the ability to access your data over Wi-Fi. You can access your data with any Apple iOS device or Android device with the download of a simple, free app, and with smart TVs as well as Wi-Fi tethering and gaming consoles. With such a large selection of compatible devices, the Vantec NexStar Wi-Fi hard drive dock has wide application potential. So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the NexStar Wi-Fi hard drive dock and see if this is the Wi-Fi enabled hard drive dock for you.
If you’re a storage hound, chances are good you have a hard drive dock connected to your computer. They’re crazy popular, and for good reason. But what’s not so popular are docks that bundle wireless functionality in. Vantec’s latest does, so let’s dive in and see if it can give us the best of both worlds.
Hard drive docks are nothing new. They have been around for quite some time and we have reviewed a handful of them. The only thing that has really changed in the way of hard drive docks is the connections. When USB 3.0 came out we saw a new round of hard drive docks with the new, faster connection. So what is next for hard drive docks? Vantec seems to think WiFi is. It makes sense, we have so many wireless devices now with tablets and smartphones ruling our lives. So why not be able to access the information on any hard drive without having to have a USB connection on your device? This is where the NexStar WiFi Hard Drive Dock comes in. It is your normal hard drive dock supporting 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives and has a USB 3.0 connection, but it also has WiFi so you can use an iOS or Android device to connect to it and access your files. Let’s dive in!
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