Rocstor us also provided with a 2 port eSATA bracket which expands the capability of eSATA connection for computers that do not have onboard eSATA connector. Just simply plug the bracket cable into your free onboard SATA connector and secure it with a screw in one of your expansion slots on the back of the computer. Today's newest after market computer cases offer front panel eSATA connector and hopefully Mac will follow this trend and keep supporting the eSATA connection which offers incredible boost in data transfer versus USB or even Firewire standards.

First Impressions Rocstor offers the drives in capacities ranging from 250, to 750 GB and 1TB drive on the horizon. The drive's enclosure is made of Aluminum and lightweight but durable plastic and includes shockproof mount for the hard drive. The hard drive itself is a SATA 7200 Rpm Seagate Barracuda 72.10 or Western Digital KS with 16 MB of internal cache. Which I'm very comfortable with recommending both of the models based on experience and outstanding performance and reliability with Seagate's 5 year and WD 3 year warranty which speaks for itself.

Rocpro line external hard drive enclosure is a fan less and very quiet suitable for recording, monitoring or critical listening environments. The cooling is provided by natural dissipation of heat through the Aluminum cover of the enclosure. It's suitable for horizontal , vertical or stackable use, with upright stand included in the package.

In Use In our lab we have tested the drive with "HD Tach" hard drive bench marking software with all available connections. Based on our results the Rocstor drive is a good, stable performer suitable for home or studio use for both Mac and PC.

The drive comes preformatted with FAT file system for compatibility reasons, however I have recorded much better results after I've reformatted the drive with NTFS file system, so I'd recommend to everybody to do that if their system is capable of taking advantage of NTFS file system structure. Mac users will have to reformat it through Apple's Disk Utility for best results.

Some of the Rocstor enclosures like Rocpro 800AV come with inbuilt power adapter which eliminates the bulky power adapter hanging at the end of your power cable, which I was always a big fan of. However 800 AV is USB/Firewire drive without eSATA connection option. So we have to face the decision if to invest in faster eSATA enclosure with external power adapter or Firewire enclosure without power adapter more suitable for mobile backups or laptop users.

Rocstor drives come with free carrying case which is a nice feature however does not offer much additional protection to the hard drive so extreme caution still has to be taken every time the hard drive is being transferred.

Rocstor drives are very easy to use nad fully Plug and Play compatible. Hot- pluggable compatibility which allows the drive to be connected or disconnected without turning off the computer.

Pros Reliable , quiet, affordable back up solution

Cons External Power supply

Conclusion Rocstor drives are a suitable solution for all users that require dependable, mobile and affordable external drive for back ups, transfer of data or storage for separated projects.

Ladia Svajcik Senior Systems Engineer MCSE, MCSA, MCP, CompTIA Security+ www.audeum.com