14 DAY TRIAL // The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface is one that has spread quite quickly among storage devices, and it really looks like the Sharkoon has made liberal use of it when it built its two newest external drive enclosures.
While at one point storage devices were bulky things that had no place other than inside equally burly computers, things have changed substantially.
Now, even common hard disk drives (HDDs) are actually easy (more or less) to handle and, depending on the PC case, simple to insert and take out.
Sharkoon is one of the IT players most involved in the business of external storage, where specially-designed HDDs, SSDs, flash drives and enclosures run amock.
Speaking of enclosures, this is exactly the sort of devices that the company has now brought forth, their series' names being RAID Box.
One of them has two bays, meaning that a pair of 3.5-inch hard drives can be placed inside it, while the other one has five bays.
That said, the former can configure the storage devices in RAID 0, 1 and JBOD configurations. It also has locks for both bays, a fast-swap mechanism (HDDs are easily installed or uninstalled) and a 70mm fan, for active cooling.
Meanwhile, the 5-bay RAID Box has two fans, only smaller (60mm in diameter) while drives can be set up in RAID 0, 1/10, 3, 5 and JBOD.
Both have one SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connector, with the 5-bay RAID Box also featuring an eSATA port for good measure.
The only condition that HDDs need to meet in order for the enclosures to support them is for them to use the SATA interface.
The 2-bay model sells for 88 Euro and can be seen in detail here, while the 5-bay one has a price of 195 Euro and is detailed on its own product page here.