Testing:

To test the enclosure I used Simpli Software's HD Tach.  All tests were run on the Seagate drive before formatting.

     HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible. -Simpli Software

     To establish a good baseline for testing, I first installed the Barracuda drive directly to the motherboard.  The above test results reflect the HD Tach long test cycle.  Our test drive clocks a solid 122.1 MB/s Burst Speed, Random Access speed of 14.2 ms, Average Read speed of 63.6 MB/s and an Average Write speed of 59.2 MB/s.  Testing in short mode offered slightly higher speeds.

     One of the nice advantages of the Antec design is the ability to choose between USB and eSATA.  Since eSATA is still pretty new to the market, this allows you to go USB 2.0 and then move to the faster eSATA down the road.  The above testing was performed using the onboard USB ports.  You can see the Random Access numbers are close at 13.7 ms but the rest of the drive speed is greatly reduced by the addition of the USB layer.  compared to other Review Archive we have tested these scores are towards the top of the list.

eSATA Short Test

eSATA Long Test

     The best performance is achieved through an eSATA connection as shown above.  Since the Fatal1ty motherboard does not have a eSATA port, I used the Antec slot adaptor provided to install the MX-1 externally.  Interestingly the numbers stayed remarkably consistent during both tests and even scored higher than our baseline in several of the tests.  The long test numbers from our eSATA connection show a Burst Speed of 128.8 MB/s, Random Access speed at 13.3 ms, Average read of 68.4 MB/s and an Average Write of 63.7 MB/s.

     During testing I routinely took the temperature of the top of the unit and the exhaust port on the bottom.  with an ambient room temperature of 74°, the top surface topped out at 78° and the exhaust at 86°.  These numbers are a great indicator of the power of the active cooling.  During the testing my idle Vantec NexStar 3 was measured at a stable 99°.

Conclusion:

     Although we could just as easily use these tests as a basis for proving the advantages of SATA over USB 2.0, remember the goal is to determine the performance of the Antec MX-1 enclosure.  It is easy to see that the MX-1 was able to successfully bring the full performance potential of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drive to the system using the enclosed eSATA connectors.  Even with the much slower USB 2.0 connection, the MX-1 provided one of the top performances we have seen to date.  The active cooling is a very sweet cherry on this delicious package.  During the testing the fan was inaudible over the system and the drive noise was non existent.  Simply put: The Antec MX-1 is the best 3.5" drive enclosure I have ever seen. It out performs the rest in both USB and eSATA and is untouchable in temperature control.

Innovation:	9.0 out of 10
Performance:	10 out of 10
Quality:	10 out of 10
Stability:	N/A
Overclocking:	N/A
Software/Drivers Pack:	N/A
Value:	9.0 out of 10
Overall Rating 9.5
Project Skill Level (10 being most difficult)	2 out of 10