That is the eSATA, which is not yet well established but it surely will become soon enough, as it is many times faster than USB and is just as practical. Vantec certainly could not stay out of the party, so they just released another series of the Nexstar line, which not only support USB 2.0 but also eSATA and they house SATA drives, not IDE ones. Vantec just sent us a prototype of their new line, the NST-360SU-BK for evaluation, so let us have a close look at it.

Manufacturer features and specifications:

• Model : NST-360SU-BK
• Interface: SATA to eSATA & USB 2.0
• 206 X 123 X 33 mm
• Window 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP, Mac OS 8.6 & Above

• Aluminum Casing Cools Down Your Hard Drive
• Transfer Rates Up to 3Gbps W/ eSATA
• Transfer Rates Up to 480Mbps W/ USB 2.0 (12Mbps W/ USB1.1)
• Easily Add Storage to Any System with SATA or USB
• Hot-Swappable: Plug And Play without Rebooting
• Attractive Blue LED Indicates Power/HDD Activity
• Supports Up to 400GB Hard Drives

Minimum system requirements:

• Intel Pentium II 350 MHz-compatible or Mac G3 processor & greater
• Microsoft Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP or Mac OS 8.6 & greater
• USB or SATA-equipped system
• For USB 2.0 speeds, the system must support USB 2.0 specifications CD Rom drive (If drivers are needed)

Quote from the manufacturer:

“Form and functionality collide with style in the Nexstar 3 External SATA Hard Drive Enclosure from Vantec. With its mirror finish, sleek curves and bold colors, the Vantec Nexstar 3 stands out from the crowd. The sturdy drive cage protects your hard drive while the aluminum case effectively draws away the heat, protecting your drive from overheating. The Nexstar 3 features eSATA (external Serial ATA) and USB 2.0 interfaces offering speeds up to 3Gbps or 480Mbps respectively. This flexibility allows you to use your hard drive at its full performance where eSATA is available and still have the option of using USB where it's not. The Nexstar 3 is an ideal way to store and transfer large amounts of data in an enclosure that matches your style!”

The Vantec Nexstar line is offered in four different colors, although only one appears to be available to the time. The color of the unit we received, which is currently the only one in Vantec’s website, is the Onyx Black, which is a stylish and elegant color. The Nexstar line also comes in Brilliant Red (fantastic bold color), Midnight Blue (nice soft color) and Steel Grey (I find this color too cold myself). These 4 colors should be enough for you to choose whichever you like best, or whichever looks better on your desk.

Packaging and bundle

The Vantec Nexstar comes in a cardboard box, wrapped in plastic. That is good as it prevents the box to be opened without removing the plastic, so it can warn you whether someone opened the box or not. The box is well designed, with a very clear picture of the Nexstar on it and naming all of its features. By opening the box, you will see that it is thick enough itself. But Vantec did not simply rely on the box. The box is separated in two departments. At the right side, the cables that come with the unit reside, where at the left side the Nexstar drive is held in place by two thick pieces of Styrofoam. Given that the enclosure itself weights next to nothing, I believe it is next to impossible to even scratch the unit unless the box is badly deformed and still that requires a lot of force.

With the Vantec Nexstar, you will get a considerable bundle. To begin with, you will get a small manual and drivers CD. The drivers CD is useless for people running the latest OS versions, but people with older OS versions (like Windows 98/Me) will need the USB driver. You will also receive all of the necessary cables; the USB cable, eSATA cable and AC power cable. Nothing all that important about them. The power supply unit of the Nexstar is external, which is common but inconvenient; I would love to see a 3.5” external drive enclosure with an internal power supply unit. It is a Welland switching power supply unit and so it can work anywhere on the planet, 110V or 230V AC. The power supply seems adequate to handle any hard disk drive, and it is a good thing to see that it has a good share of certifications as I consider cheap power supply units downright dangerous. In the package there is also a PCI bracket which turns any internal SATA port to an eSATA one. That was a very nice addition for those people whose motherboards do not have an eSATA port at their back panel. Finally, there is a plastic stand which you can use to mount the Nexstar vertically, if you are restrained by space or if you just prefer it this way. The stand is the same color as the Nexstar, so it is visually appealing.

Looking at the enclosure itself, it sure does draw attention easily. The aluminum casing and metallic onyx black paint give the Nexstar a very appealing look while the nickel rings at the edges add a lot to its elegance. The paint job is excellent; creating a mirror finish with black paint is a hard thing to do, but it is harder to make it less prone to scratches as well. As you can see from the above picture, the surface of the Nexstar reflects the light to such a degree that from a close distance it almost is like a black mirror. Not only that, but the paint feels quite resilient to scratches. I did not want to try how much resilient, but at least running my keys over it did not leave any scratches behind to talk about.

The front and rear of the Nexstar share the same excellent mirror black paint finish. At the front, the only notable thing to discuss is the power LED, which is the Vantec logo in blue. Take note that this is no HDD access LED and won’t blink as the HDD is being used. It stays on all the time. The light is soft and shouldn’t bother anyone, unless they set the Nexstar right in front of their eyes. At the rear of the Nexstar, there is an on/off switch and the 3 connection ports that you expect; the power supply unit connector, an USB 2.0 connector and an eSATA connector.

By removing two screws and pulling the rear part, the Nexstar opens up. Be careful with the power LED cable, which is attached on the PCB and needs to be removed before you pull the enclosure open entirely. The Nexstar has only a single cable inside, for both power and data, fitting all SATA HDDs instantly. You just need to screw the drive in place after attaching the cable to it and you are done. The installation of the drive not only cannot be considered hard, but it is pretty much childish. Even a 7 year old kid could install the drive without a manual at all.

USB

SATA

ESATA

Testing the performance of a drive inside the Vantec Nexstar, gave me the results I expected. The drive is an 80GB Seagate drive, model ST380013AS. As you can see, HD Tach gives almost the same performance readings when having the drive attached inside the case and connected at a SATA port compared to the eSATA connector. The performance variations are minor and inside the error margin. This is expected, as eSATA is using the very same SATA diode that the internal ports are using and is by no means slower than normal SATA. The high CPU utilization probably is due to a chipset bug, as this happens with many of my drives on the DFI LanParty nF4 Ultra-D motherboard. Also, the drive was able to boot normally when I removed it from the case and used it in the Nexstar with the eSATA connector. Unfortunately that was not true with the USB 2.0 connector as well, as the drive could not boot at all, probably due to a driver conflict. Of course, if I reformatted the whole drive and installed the OS all over again, it should work fine, but I thought it would be faster and better to boot from my secondary drive. As you can see from the HD Tach benchmark run, the seek time of the drive remains the same, but performance is nearly halved. This was expected, as the top speed of the USB 2.0 is ‘only’ 480Mbps where the SATA protocol can reach 3Gbps today. Nevertheless, being able to use either eSATA or USB 2.0 makes the enclosure much more flexible, as most computers do not have eSATA ports yet, especially laptops.

Final words and conclusion

The conclusion for such a simple device cannot but be simple itself. There is not much to say about the Nexstar 3, not that were not said through this presentation already. The Nexstar 3 simply looks and feels great, but also works great. The eSATA gives the Nexstar a lot of potential as it is by far the fastest external drive protocol at the moment and does not limit the speed potential of the SATA drives, but the USB 2.0 connection makes sure that the enclosure will be able to connect to any PC on the planet that was built this millennium. The bundle of the Nexstar is very well thought but is not extraordinary, which would result to an excess pricetag as well, and also its quality feels very good. The Nexstar NST-360SU-BK is ideal for attaching a SATA drive and moving it around or keeping it external for any given reason. Also, Vantec was correct, form and functionality do collide with style, as the Nexstar is strikingly well made for an external drive enclosure. It cannot nearly compare to other cheap enclosures that exist at the moment. The only problem of the Nexstar, which problem I believe that no one solved yet, is the external power supply which is not nice to carry around. I would love to see a 3.5” enclosure with the power supply entirely internal myself. So the result is, if you need a quality external drive enclosure and would love to take advantage of the true potential of your SATA drive but also not lose the versatility of USB 2.0 while at it, the Nexstar might be just for you.

My personal thanks to Alan Chang (Vantec USA) for providing us the Nexstar NST-360SU-BK unit to us for the means of this review.