It is made of aluminum and has a data rate of up to 10 Gbps

Feb 11, 2014 07:44 GMT  ·  By

Thunderbolt may be a technology mostly found on Apple Mac systems and laptops, but PCs support it too, when motherboard makers or add-in-card builders go through the trouble of making it happen. That's why StarTech isn't launching the new TB drive enclosure as an exclusive Apple device.

Then again, it's always a good thing to have as wide a compatibility as possible, and StarTech definitely kept that in mind when it designed the S252SMTB3.

It's not the fastest it could be, since only the initial Thunderbolt standard is supported, with a top transfer speed of 10 Gbps.

Still, that's a lot, and USB 3.1 (also 10 Gbps) isn't exactly widespread. Indeed, it barely made it to more than a handful of products, so Thunderbolt's superiority in terms of performance hasn't been threatened yet (USB 3.0 is "just" a 5 Gbps interface).

Anyway, the new 2-Bay Thunderbolt Hard Drive Enclosure can hold HDDs of up to 2 TB capacity (per drive) and has a built-in cooling fan.

It is made of aluminum and ships with a Thunderbolt cable of 1 meter / 3.2 feet. There's also a daisy-chain port, a second TB port that lets you connect more than one TB device to your PC through the same connection.

All in all, the StarTech S252SMTB3 Dual-Drive Thunderbolt Enclosure has a price of $326.99 / £246.30 / €240. Shipments should start soon through various online and brick-and-mortar stores, if they haven't already.

"Our Thunderbolt Enclosure offers the best possible user experience, with lightning-fast transfer speeds, a sleek design and dependable performance," said Juliet Wei, senior product manager for StarTech's external drive enclosure product line.

"This enclosure can help create the ideal solution for any high-capacity, external storage application, and includes a 1-meter Thunderbolt cable which provides hassle-free setup right out of the box, without the expense of a necessary cable."

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StarTech S252SMTB3
StarTech S252SMTB3
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