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The Antec MX-1external enclosure might be late to the game, but Antec wasn't about toroll over and let the external HDD market eat them for dinner. Withthe fashionably late entry, the Antec engineers were able to take theirtime and actually design a new product from the ground up and not haveto rush development by leaving out certain desirable features. Speaking of features, let's take a look at what the Antec MX-1 has tooffer:
| Feature | Specification | Author's Comments |
| Hard Drive Compatability | 3.5" SATA 1.5/3.0 Gbps (up to 750GB capacity) | NoPATA IDE hard drives for the MX-1! And you can forget about trying touse one of those fancy new 1TB drives, nothing over 750GB allowed! |
| External Data Connections | USB 2.0, eSATA | USB 2.0 is very easy to use and widely compatible. eSATA is just as fast as an internal SATA connection. |
| Cooling System | Active cooling by Antec blower (20 DbA) | Activecooling helps keep the hard drive cool, resulting in increasedreliability and stability. 20 DbA is a virtually silent sound pressurevalue. |
| Construction | Plastic and Aluminum with carbon-glass filled frame | Plasticis light weight and inexpensive, aluminum is light weight, strong, andgood looking. The carbon-glass frame wraps around the outside of theenclosure adding an extra bit of strength. |
| Physical Dimensions | 2.25" (5.7cm) H, 5.75" (14.6cm) W, 8.7" (22cm) D | Not the smallest enclosure around, but relatively compact considering the features (like active cooling). |
The MX-1 has a lot of great features on paper, but let's take a closer look and see how it really performs!
Theretail MX-1 package is a fairly sizable cardboard box displaying theproduct in question as well as the many highly touted features of theenclosure.
Insidethe retail box is a generous assortment of cables as well as a simpleprinted user manual. The majority of the manual is all simple drawingsand no words. So if you like pictionary, then you'll love trying to"read" this! The MX-1 comes with the necessary power cable andconverter brick as well as an internal SATA to eSATA PCI-mountedbracket, eSATA data cable, and USB 2.0 data cable. You have everythingyou could need to get up and running and actually use every feature andconnection available on the MX-1.
Alsoincluded is a stand to hold the unit vertically. The stand is of onepiece plastic construction with four no-slip pads on the bottom and twoother small pads on the inside edges where the MX-1 rests.
Inuse, the stand actually works quite well. I was pleasantly surprisedto find it held the MX-1 very firmly in place and felt very stable evenwith a 320GB drive installed. So if you are looking to make thefootprint of the MX-1 as small as possible, using the stand will takeup a mere 3.125 inch strip of your desk space without compromisingstability.
Thetop of the the MX-1 is relatively bland, except for a small ventspanning the width of the rear edge. The black anodized brushedaluminum panel really helps to add a touch of elegance to what wouldotherwise be very bland.
Flippingthe unit on edge, we can see the bottom panel, which is alsoconstructed of the same brushed aluminum, but also features four padsto keep it from sliding around on your desktop. The fact that you caneasily use the MX-1 in a horizontal or vertical orientation is verynice. I prefer to have it sit horizontally because it is much morestable, but the option to securely mount it in a vertical position isnice when you need every inch of desktop space you can get. From thisangle in the picture above, you can also get a good look at the all onepiece "carbon-glass frame" that wraps around the MX-1. I'm not surehow much extra strength this little addition actually adds, but all Ican tell you is the MX-1 is built like a tank; this thing does notflex, bend, warp, or rattle at all.
Atthe rear of the MX-1 we find all of the available externalconnections. From left to right in the picture above, we have thepower connection, USB data connection, eSATA data connection, andon/off switch. The connections are all recessed into the back of theunit just a bit, so if you are looking down at it from the top it mightbe kind of hard to see where they are without lifting up the back ofthe MX-1 just a little bit. The only other issue I had here was withthe power switch. It has a very "loose" feel to it, like the rockercover is just going to fall off any second. While it obviously stayedput and worked just fine, I still don't like the "cheap" feel of it. The rest of the MX-1 is impeccably designed, though I wish Antec hadfound a little more reliable switch to use here. But until I actuallyhave a real problem with it, I can't complain too much.
Somethingthat sets the Antec MX-1 apart from most other external HDD enclosuresis the active cooling system. The picture above shows theempty internal hard drive tray with the built in blower fan. Duringuse, the whir of the spinning hard disk drive was always louder thanthe blower fan. It wasn't until I was in a completely silent room andswitched the enclosure on that I could hear the fan. But even then, itwas barely audible and only lasted a brief moment until the hard driveitself was able to spin up to speed. You shouldn't have to worry aboutthis fan unless it starts to fail and may possibly produce a moreaudible grinding noise (like any failing fan would produce). Also takenote of the white strips along the edges and around the screw holes. This is a very soft silicon rubber that helps reduce the vibrations andnoise produced by the hard drive as well as cushion it from externalabuse (like accidentally dropping the enclosure short distances).
Theblower is designed to pull cool air into the MX-1 through the vents atthe top and down over the hard drive inside. Then the fan exhausts theheated air out the bottom rear of the unit. This is a very efficientway to keep the internal drive cool with constantly circulating airwithout adding a lot of extra physical size to the unit.
Thepicture above shows the inside of the MX-1 with the hard drive trayremoved. All that is left is a simple wiring system that powers thesmall blue HDD activity LED in the front. You can also see the exhaustvent opening at the rear of the casing (below the cutouts for theexternal connections).
Thefirst step to installing a hard drive in the MX-1 requires you toremove the only screw found on the exterior of the unit (which islocated at the front edge of the bottom panel).
Oncethe screw is removed, you will then be able to remove the top panel. So flip the enclosure back over and slide the top panel toward thefront of the enclosure, then lift it up and off.
Nowthat you have made it inside the MX-1, you will be greeted with a scenethat should look something like the picture above. Your next step hereis to remove the two screws holding down the hard drive tray (labeledA). With those two screws removed, carefully slide the tray toward thefront of the enclosure to free it from the plastic clips holding itdown and you should then be able to lift it out. But don't go yankingit out just yet! There are two small connectors located on the edge ofthe PCB. The red and black wired connector is the power for the blowerfan (which is all connected to the HDD tray, so it doesn't need to beremoved). The other connector with green wires (labeled B in thepicture above) supplies power to the small blue HDD activity LED. Youwill need to detach this connector in order to completely free the HDDtray from the body of the MX-1. You can remove the connector beforeunscrewing the two screws, but I actually found it easier to unscrewthe HDD tray and lift it up a little because it was then easier to getat the very small connector to disconnect it. If you try to disconnectthe LED wires with the HDD tray still firmly secured inside the MX-1body, it is a very difficult endeavor.
Withthe HDD tray finally removed, you can now actually install the drive. Simply place the drive flat on the white silicon-rubber pads and slideit back so the fixed SATA power and data connections on the MX-1's PCBline up and fully connect with the appropriate connections on the harddrive itself.
Nowyou need to very carefully turn the HDD tray over (with the HDD stillconnected to the PCB). Remember that the hard drive is held down tothe HDD tray only by the small SATA connections on the PCB, so makesure to hold the drive firmly in place on the tray as you flip it overor you risk the drive falling off and breaking the SATA connections! With the tray successfully overturned, locate the four drive mountingscrews that came included with your MX-1 in a small plastic bag.
Screwthese into the four holes you see lined with the same white siliconrubber pads. These screw holes will line up with the four mountingholes located on the bottom of the hard drive and securely attach it tothe MX-1 HDD tray.
Nowthat you have the hard drive securely fastened to the HDD tray, you canreinstall the HDD tray by simply retracing your steps to remove it. Start by placing the tray back inside the body of the MX-1 andreconnecting the LED wire harness. Then slide the HDD tray toward theback so it locks into place with the plastic clips. Now replacethe two HDD tray mounting screws you removed earlier and you havesuccessfully installed the hard drive into the MX-1. All that is leftto do now is replace the top panel onto the top, flip the whole thingover, and screw in the last external screw to secure the top panel inplace; this completes the installation process and returns the MX-1 toits original state (except with a hard drive installed).
To test the Antec MX-1
For testing the Antec MX-1, a 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drive was installed into the main system and benchmarked, then removed and installed into the MX-1 to be benchmarked.
Thechart above shows the performance of the 7200.10 Barracuda driveinstalled internally directly to the SATA connections on themotherboard as measured by HD Tach. With a measured random access time of 13.4ms, average read of 65.6MB/s, and 253.2 MB/s, it is evident that this is a veryhigh-performance hard drive so it will be interesting to see if theinterface of the MX-1 causes any loss of performance...
Butafter running the same test on the same system with the same data onthe drive, it is obvious that there is only an insignificantperformance difference between an internal SATA drive and an externaleSATA connection on the MX-1 enclosure. A random access time of13.6ms, average read of 65.7 MB/s, and 236.4 MB/s burst speed showsthat performance of the same drive in the MX-1 is very good compared tothe internal connection. Now let's take a look at the USB 2.0interface performance...
Thesituation here is obviously much less than ideal compared to the eSATAconnection. The random access time is still very good at 13.5ms, butthe average read (37.3 MB/s) and burst speed (37.7 MB/s)) leave a lotto be desired. That is the price you have to pay for being able totransfer data over the widely compatible USB interface. It should nowbe apparent that having an external enclosure connected via eSATA ismuch more desirable than the traditional USB connection. Thankfullythe MX-1 features both interfaces, so you can choose between a fasteSATA connection when at a computer with such capability, or fall backon the USB interface when using a computer that limits your connectionoptions.
Pros
- Active cooling is quiet and keeps the drive's temperature under control.
- Construction is extremely sturdy and reliable.
- Allows for stable vertical and horizontal use.
- Very classy looks that are not likely to be out of place in practically any setting.
- Soft silicon-rubber under drive and around drive screw holes to reduce vibration noise and help protect against small shock.
Cons
- Front power/activity LED is very difficult to see under almost any lighting condition.
- Drive installation is somewhat of a lengthy process (good thing you don't have to do it often).
- Currently available for about $60, the Antec MX-1 is certainly not easy on the wallet.
Our Recommendation
Fromthe moment I retrieved the MX-1 from it's protective foam, a smileslowly worked its way across my face, as I knew I was holding awinner. This thing is constructed like a tank but looks like anelegant piece of technology. The list of features extends from theoutside appearance and construction materials to the very inside withsilent active cooling and vibration dampening layers around the HDD. Ithink the eSATA connection is the greatest gift to external enclosuressince they have been in production, as it is fast and easy to use. Theinclusion of a USB 2.0 port is a necessary evil in order to improvecompatibility with older machines and laptop computers.
There isreally so much to like about the MX-1, it's hard to find something tofrown upon. The only things that didn't get me excited about thisenclosure were the "cheap" feeling on/off switch in the back and thehigh price tag. The higher price is somewhat justified because of thegreat construction and features of the enclosure, but the MX-1 is oneof only two or three priced above $50 compared to other similarlyfeatured products. The lengthy drive installation process was also alittle stifling. But I can't really complain much because the typicaluser will only have to do it once. Overall, it is worth the hassle asthe Antec MX-1 is a great product and well worth the wait. I sure hopethe engineers responsible for the MX-1 are relaxing on a tropical beachsomewhere because they deserve it! If you are looking for an externalenclosure that is sure to outperform and outlast the typical productsand look good doing it, then the Antec MX-1 should be at the top ofyour short list.
Other Reviews of Note
Its always nice tohave more than one opinion on a component before you spend your hardearned money. For one, We may see something others missed, or viceversa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic, we'll not onlygive you our recommendation, but also point out some reviews from someother great sites around the web.
Bjorn3d
Virtual-Hideout
TweakNews
XSReviews
Silent PC Review
XYZ Computing