Sans Digital MOBILESTORE Hard Drive Enclosure Review

Conclusion

Fast, Reliable, Versatile. All these and many more terms can easily be applied to the MobileSTOR, but the one which really stands out (and to our minds) really best describes this enclosure is: Elegance. This is not only a beautiful enclosure to look at, but it is also highly elegant in its operation. Best of all, Sans Digital did not need to resort to clear Lucite or other Mac mutant traits to create such a beautiful piece of equipment. In this day and age where so much of the "IBM compatible" computer equipment falls into the “ugly beige box” category, it really is nice to see a product as refined in its looks as it is its performance.

Believe it or not, this unit is not just another pretty face; in fact beauty and elegance are well and fine but if your product doesn’t “Just Work” it is nothing more than a fancy, yet expensive paper weight. The MobileSTOR is not only extremely pretty and fast; it is durable too. We tested this unit as hard, if not harder, than many other enclosures we have reviewed in the past and anything we threw at this unit it handled with aplomb.

If you want to nit pick, one has to look awfully close before anything could even conceivably be considered annoying. The first small nit is the choice of caps used in the integrated power supply. Do you really want to complain over a robust built in power supply (as in no power brick to lug around!)? Me neither so lets call that "nit" a piece of lint and move on.

One could also make a case that Safe33 and Safe50 are gimmicky at best and useless at worst; but in all honesty that would be overly harsh. This unit is mainly a eSATA unit and yes SAFE33 and SAFE50 require a port multiplier to work properly with eSATA. If you want to blame anyone blame the weenies who thought up and ratified the eSATA protocol, not the manufacturer who has to live by those rules; in other words "don't hate the player....hate the game". The very fact that these are available options on an enclosure that cost way less than two hundred bucks is astounding. Even when placed under a microscope, those are the only two very small issues we could find with this unit. Pretty impressive to say the least.

In the end this winning combination of beauty, speed, versatility and above all else durability makes the MobileSTOR MS2UTN+B a Dam Good piece of kit. However, as with most things in life, quality costs and this enclosure is no exception. If you want the Royals Royce of "prosumer" dual bay external enclosures, expect to pay for the privilege; however, if you can afford it you will not be disappointed.


Pros:
- Stylish, yet Rugged Design
- Easy installation
- Excellent Performance
- eSATA connectivity option


Cons:
- Less than optimal USB performance
- Port multiplier required to see multi RAID array w/ eSATA (e.g. safe33)
- Port multiplier not included