Eagle Tech Consus M-Series External Enclosure Review

Manufacturer Product Page: CONSUS M
Model Number: ET-CSMESU2-BK
Availability: Now
Price: Check Here To Compare Prices
Warranty: 1 year



For many people the fact that external storage solutions are usually slow has been the deciding factor in why they have not yet purchased one. In the past external storage used to be big, clunky, expensive, loud and worst of all SLOW. The lack of speed is certainly not the fault of the hard drives which are used in them as they are the same ones which we use in our computers every day. Heck, if you were so inclined you could stick a Western Digital Raptor 150GB into one of these external enclosures and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference speed wise. This is because the biggest bottleneck has always been the connection type.

In the beginning it, was USB 1.1 which was super slow (yet was a ground breaking, lightening fast improvement over floppy disk or serial or even the horrid parallel connection) this was quickly updated to USB 2.0 and for the longest while speeds stagnated, with a real world maximum throughput of 40MB/s. Luckily, Apple was not a fan of USB and a few lucky ones (mainly Apple users) got FireWire 800 and things were good, not great but good. Unfortunately FW800 is an expensive accessory if you don’t own a Mac, so for the majority of people it is just not a realistic connection type.

Then eSATA hit the scene and geeks everywhere rejoiced for finally we had an external connection which would be just as fast as an internally connected hard drive. Unfortunately eSATA has had a slow adoption rate as it is much more expensive than USB to implement. All this is about to change, as Eagle (Tech) has landed a bevy of new enclosures all sporting eSATA connections. Huzzah!!

Today we will be looking at a very special enclosure made by Eagle Tech USA. While Eagle Tech may not be a household name they have been in business since 1992 but only as a behind the scenes supplier to OEM manufacturers. In other words, while they may be well known to industry insiders, many products they help build which we have come to know and love have a different logo on them. Well that is the past and Eagle Tech USA has decided to branch out and market directly to us the consumer. What this means is they can offer amazing value for products which are of high quality as they have not only cut out the middle man but a veritable forest of go-betweens as well.

The subject of today’s review is the Eagle Consus M-Series external storage system with both USB and eSATA connectivity options. While it only accepts one hard drive, it also offers truly tool-less hot swapability. The Consus M (as we will call it in this review) is available at many e-tailers at retails for about $30. With such a low asking price is this enclosure worth your hard earned dollars which will finally offer you a good reason to get your first external enclosure; or is this an offer which is just too good to be true?