Vantec NexStar eSATA to USB 3.0 Adapter Review

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If you are like me, then you have a few older drive enclosures that don't really conform to today's standard in terms of connectivity. You may have older eSATA enclosures that you really loved using in their day but have now upgraded to a PC that no longer has the required inputs. Luckily, in this day and age, adapters for each scenario are abundant and today we will look at one such solution from Vantec.

Vantec has been cranking out storage enclosures since I can remember, with the NexStar bringing the most in terms of brand recognition. Today, though, the NexStar brand makes its way to a cable of sorts as an adapter to take your existing eSATA capable enclosure and transform it into a modern day USB 3.0 solution.

With that said, compatibility of this unit is going to extend to any modern operating system with an available USB 3.0 port and, of course, you will need an eSATA capable enclosure. MSRP of the CB-ESATAU3-6 sits at $19.99 with a one-year warranty.

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As you can see above, the scope of delivery for the adapter is rather simple. Here we have the cable that includes the adapter inline. You also find some reading materials to aid in setup.

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Here we have the ends of each cable, one USB 3.0 and the other eSATA. A thing to note here is this adapter does accept modern eSATA 6Gb connections.

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Above, we have installed our SanDisk X110 SSD in the ICYBento enclosure and connected it up via eSATA to our test system. As you can see, the drive performance is in its native stage. 500 MB/s reads and 450 MB/s writes confirm this.

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Here we used the same scenario for the setup, but used the Vantec eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter in place of the standard eSATA cable. In our recent review of the ICYBento, we noticed it had sluggish USB 3.0 performance, which topped out at around 250 MB/s read and write. With the Vantec connected to the same enclosure, we were able to gain quite a bit of performance touching 400 MB/s read and 380 MB/s write.

For those that are in the market for a solution such as the Vantec eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter, whether you're looking to revive an old enclosure or boost the speed of an existing external storage solution, this is surely a product you would want to take a look at.

Build quality of the unit is superb; both cables appear to be built really well with solid end connections. On the performance side, as you saw in our review, we found the adapter to do quite well, touching 400 MB/s read and 380 MB/s write with our SanDisk X110 SSD.

On the downside, I found the adapter to throw fits with some enclosures, mainly those that have an existing eSATA chipset internally. However, the unit performed flawlessly with enclosures that use an eSATA pass-through.

MSRP of the Vantec eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter sits at $19.99 and it comes with a one-year warranty. Current pricing for the adapter can be found below.

PRICING: You can find the Vantec eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Vantec eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter retails for $22.99 at Amazon.

Canada: The Vantec eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter retails for CDN$27.66 at Amazon Canada.

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