Introduction

I have already taken a look at the BlacX USB and BlacX SE which is also a USB only desktop drive device. The Thermaltake BlacX units have started a new class in hard drive storage. You can't really call them carriers since you don't take them with you on the go, nor can you call them internal hot swap since they do not sit inside the case. I guess for now, until someone tells me differently we will call them desktop hot swap devices.

The first two USB only BlacX units we looked at performed brilliantly for USB. In the back of my mind, though, I knew the transfer performance was being held up by the connection and recommended to everyone to just hang tight and wait until the eSATA version became available. Today we have this version in hand; the BlacX (part number ST0005U) with eSATA support has finally made its way to my door step and even though I have other articles that need to be written up first, I just had to see how this baby performs.

Before we get to performance numbers, let's go through the routine and see how the BlacX is packaged and look to see if anything has changed from the other two previously reviewed versions.