Akasa Elite S and Integral S 2.5″ Hard Drive Enclosures Review

Many people will opt for the simple route when purchasing an external hard drive, purchasing a pre-assembled unit from the likes of Western Digital or Seagate. But the more tech-savvy users out there may decide to purchase the enclosure and hard drive separately to reduce the cost or to achieve better levels of performance. Today we are going to look at two of Akasa's 2.5" hard drive enclosures which both support USB3.0 connectivity. These are perfect for those who need an ultra-fast SSD based external drive or those who want to make the most of a traditional mechanical drive. We will also be taking a brief look at a front bay Card and Drive reader from Akasa that supports a number of memory card standards alongside 2.5" hard drives. Akasa Elite S Features Super Speed USB3.0 connection Leather Finish with brushed aluminium fascia Aluminium housing for good heat dissipation Suitable for all 2.5" SATA HDD and SSD Backward compatible with USB2.0 Specification Dimensions: 132 x 90 x 16mm Max HDD Height: 9.5mm Internal interface: SATA External Interface: USB3.0 Transfer rate (up to): 5.0Gbps (USB3.0) and 480Mbps (USB2.0) Power requirements: +5V DC (from USB) Plug & Play, hot-swappable OS Support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.3+ Akasa Integral S Features Super Speed USB3.0 interface Sleek aluminium body for good heat dissipation Suitable for all 2.5" SATA and SSD drives Backward compatible with USB3.0 Plug & Play, Hos-swappable Blue LED access and power indicator Specification Dimensions: 136 x 80 x 16mm Max HDD height: 9.5mm Internal interface: SATA External interface: USB3.0 Transfer rate (up to): 5.0 Gbps (USB3.0) and 480 Mbps (USB2.0) Power requirements: +5V DC (from USB) OS Support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.3+ Akasa BayMaster Card and Drive Reader Features 2.5" SATA HDD / SSD Dock 4-slot card reader choice of fascia colour Plug and Play, hot-swappable Specification Compatibility: 3.5" Drive Bay Interface: USB2.0 Max transfer speed: 480 Mbps Max drive height: 9.5mm Power requirement: +5V DC Connectors: motherboard USB plug, SATA power LED: Card Reader and HDD Access OS Support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 The Akasa Elite S is packaged within a substantial black cardboard box that is robust enough to withstand quite severe knocks and bumps. The top of the box contains a plastic window which lets you see the attractive leather finish of the drive within. Turning over the box reveals a detailed breakdown of the enclosure's features in a various languages. Inside the box we find a USB DC power cable, a micro USB3.0 cable, a screwdriver and an installation guide. It's clear that Akasa have designed the Elite S for those who appreciate stylish PC accessories as it is finished in leather. This looks fantastic and should prove durable in the long run as it doesn't scratch or scuff easily and doesn't seem to pick up dirt easily. The backbone of the enclosure is constructed from aluminum that should prevent the drive from being damaged within. The two ends of the drive are also made from aluminum which is anodised black and brushed, which compliments the leather finish well. The Elite S supports USB3.0 which should help to improve transfer speeds for users with compatible PCs. The micro USB3.0 connector and 5V DC power connector are located on one end of the enclosure alongside a drive activity LED. There are two screws on either side of these connections which must be removed in order to install a drive within. After removing the bezel on the end of the drive, we must remove the PCB from inside the enclosure. This isn't secured by any screws so it is a simple matter of pulling it out. Once this has been removed, it can be slotted onto the hard drive's SATA connector and be inserted back into the enclosure with the hard drive. There are no screws required to fix the PCB to the hard drive as the whole lot are forced together when the bezel is reattached. The Akasa Integral S is supplied in a thick cardboard box that is contained within an outer box which sports the livery. The box is decorated in an black and white colour scheme which contrasts greatly with the red Akasa logo. The front of the box is filled with a large image of the enclosure surrounded by a basic overview of it's features. The reverse of the box provides a more detailed breakdown of its featured in a variety of languages. Inside the box we find the enclosure within the carrying case that Akasa supply which gives it an extra layer of protection. They also supply a micro USB 3.0 cable and a separate USB power cable so you can hook it up to your machine. There are also a small selection of screws, a screwdriver and an installation sheet included in the box. Akasa have decided to construct the Integral S out of aluminium which gives it a quality feeling. This doesn't add too much to the weight of the enclosure, though, so it remains easily portable. Rather than follow the industry trend of using brushed aluminium, Akasa have chosen to finish the Integral S in gloss black which looks great. This should stand the test of time better than brushed aluminium which scratches readily. On the one end of the enclosure there is a blue activity LED that illuminates an 'Integral S' logo. There is also a large 'Integral S' logo on the top of the unit. At the other end of the enclosure we find the micro-USB3.0 and 5V power connectors which are recessed slightly into the unit. To install a hard drive into the enclosure we must remove the screws on either side of this panel and slide the innards out. Installation is very simple, requiring us to slide the hard drive onto the SATA connector and then secure using four screws. The hard drive sits on top of the PCB and the screws secure the two together. The PCB and drive can then be pushed back into the enclosure and secured using the two screws. The Akasa BayMaster Card and drive reader is suspended within in a vacuum-formed plastic tray inside the flimsy outer box. The front of the box features a photo of the product and the reverse contains a few further images alongside a list of features and specification. Inside the box we find little in the way of accessories, only a replacement fascia, an installation guide and a selection of screws. Akasa seem to be targeting the enthusiast market with the BayMaster as we can't think of many mainstream users who would find a 2.5" hard drive dock useful. The reader has four card slots and supports Memory Stick, Secure Digital Extreme Digital, M2 and Micro SD. The full list of compatible cards is displayed in the introduction. Installation is a simple process, requiring us to slot the unit into an external 3.5" drive bay and secure with screws. Internally there are only two connectors for SATA power and USB2.0. We question Akasa's choice not to use a SATA connector for the hard drive, though, as it would yield far greater speeds than the internal USB header. Akasa provide a replacement fascia for the unit in beige so it will fit in aesthetically with older systems. To test the two enclosures we used the USB3.0 connection on our ASRock 890GX motherboard. To minimise any performance limitations with the hard drive, we chose to use a Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB SSD drive in the enclosures. Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64. A solid set of results all round for both enclosures. The Elite S did lag behind the Integral S in every test, although in the real world the difference is barely noticeable. We have been using HDTach for many years now and always find it is an invaluable benchmark to ascertain potential levels of performance. 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. In the average read test, the Elite S performed better than the Integral S and in the burst read test, the results were almost identical. There isn't really much to choose between the two drives in this test. The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. Once again, the enclosures performed very similarly in the ATTO disk benchmark. For our real world tests we used a mixed file folder making up 7.62 GB altogether. In the test we copied these to and from the 64GB Kingston SSDNow V+100 drive. Our test system featured a Kingston SSDNow V+100 128GB Solid State drive connected to one of our motherboard's SATA 6Gbps ports. In the real world read tests there was very little to choose between the two enclosures again although the Elite S did lag behind the Integral S by four seconds in the read test and six seconds in the write test. The Akasa Integral S 2.5" drive enclosure is an impressive product, offering a combination of style, performance and good build quality. It is lightweight and the included carrying case make it ideal for those on the move. It can be yours for £20 from Scan making it quite good value for money, especially considering the USB3.0 support. We would recommend using a 7200rpm hard drive with this enclosure to get as much storage as possible. In our opinion, the Elite S is the better looking product out of the two enclosures on test. The performance differences between the two enclosures are very small and we believe the leather finish of the Elite S is much nicer than the gloss black of the Integral S. It is only marginally more expensive than the Integral two and can be purchased for £21 from Scan. At this price we would definitely recommend it for those people in the market for a 2.5" hard drive enclosure. The Akasa BayMaster Card and Drive reader is ideal for people who need to access memory cards frequently. The added 2.5" hard drive dock functionality will be perfect for some users but we feel a couple of USB connectors would be more appropriate for most people. It is available for £12 from Scan which makes it good value for money. We would recommend purchasing it with other items at the same time as delivery costs are likely to inflate the price considerably. KitGuru says: A solid set of products from Akasa that provide good value for money