We take a look at the latest addition to Sharkoon’s QuickPort family – the SATA QuickPort Pro LAN. An external dock capable of taking both 2.5" and 3.5" SATA HDD’s.
Product on Review: Sharkoon SATA QUICKPORT PRO LANManufacturer and Sponsor: SHARKOON Technologies GmbH
Price: £44
In recent years there has been a steadily growing demand for data storage capacity, whether internal hard disk drives or externally attached storage. Traditionally there has been two main types of external HDD storage – single external hard drives sealed into a caddy or multiple hot-swappable HDD’s contained within a NAS enclosure (Network Attached Storage). Both have their pro’s and con’s.
Today we take a look at a third way which promises some of the benefits of both the traditional methods – the lower costs of the external stand-alone drive and the flexibility of the NAS solution. Please welcome Sharkoon’s SATA QUICKPORT PRO LAN.
Sharkoon’s SATA QUICKPORT PRO LAN
Here’s what Sharkoon say about it:
“With the SATA QuickPort Pro LAN, we launch an upgraded version of the already available QuickPort Pro. However, the Pro LAN now features NDAS capability:
The docking station for SATA hard disk drives now – in addition to the already included memory card slot and two USB front ports – feature a network connector to integrate it directly into the LAN.
The mounting bay for SATA HDDs can house both 2.5″ and 3.5″ HDDs, while the card reader supports SD, SDHC, MMC and MS formats. Any USB device can be connected into the USB front hub.
All media connected or plugged into the SATA QuickPort Pro LAN can be easily integrated into the local network through the device’s LAN interface. Also, all settings can be configured using the included software.”
The docking station for SATA hard disk drives now – in addition to the already included memory card slot and two USB front ports – feature a network connector to integrate it directly into the LAN.
The mounting bay for SATA HDDs can house both 2.5″ and 3.5″ HDDs, while the card reader supports SD, SDHC, MMC and MS formats. Any USB device can be connected into the USB front hub.
All media connected or plugged into the SATA QuickPort Pro LAN can be easily integrated into the local network through the device’s LAN interface. Also, all settings can be configured using the included software.”
We’ll have a closer look at the product and do some testing to see how the addition of LAN connectivity has changed the devices capabilities over the next few pages. Read on for more…
Features and Specifications
Features:
• Enables the direct connection of a SATA HDD to your PC
• Suitable for 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA HDDs
• NDAS functionality due to a network connector and included server software
• USB front hub (2 connectors)
• Card reader (SD, SDHC, MMC/MS)
• External interfaces: USB2.0, eSATA and LAN (RJ-45/100 MBit/s)
• Premium quality
• On/off button
• LEDs for power and HDD access
• Supported operating systems: Win XP/Vista/7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Package contents:
• SATA QuickPort Pro LAN
• Power adapter
• USB cable
• eSATA cable
• Patch cable
• Tools CD with software and manual (PDF)
The product datasheet can be downloaded here in pdf format. (Note: The second page is in English!)
Packaging
Sharkoon have kept to the same packaging theme as for their earlier products in the QuickPort range, but with the addition of some fairly obvious ‘LAN’ and ‘Network Connector Included’ labelling as befits this new model in their line-up.
On the side panels you get a bullet point list of contents and features in multiple languages.
Overall there are no surprises in the packaging then, everything is as it should be!
Contents
Inside the box you get the dock itself, a power supply with 3 interchangeable ‘heads’ to allow for different wall-socket types, a CD with the ‘NDAS’ software and user manual in pdf format, and connection cables for the USB, eSATA, and LAN interfaces.
The power supply has the ability to connect to a variety of different outlet sockets.
The power supply has about 1m length of cable attached which should be sufficient for most installations. The USB and LAN cables are a fairly standard 1.5m in length, but it should be noted that the eSATA cable is only 1m in length which could be a constraint for some users.
A Closer Look
The SATA QuickPort Pro LAN has a pretty businesslike look with it’s matt black exterior, which we are pleased to say doesn’t suffer from the ‘fingerprint magnet’ syndrome of glossy alternatives – an important point seeing as it’s going to be well handled through it’s life! It’s not too heavy, although it is weighty enough that even with a 3.5” desktop drive sticking out of the top it feels very stable and there is minimal vibration or noise in use.On the top of the unit is of course the flap covering the hard disk slot – the 2.5” smaller slot to the rear is always open as is pretty common with these devices – when using a 3.5” drive the full flap is folded down as the drive is inserted. There is a release latch on the front edge – when you push down on this it engages two small tabs which lift the drive free of the internal SATA data and power connectors allowing for easy removal, although the drive doesn’t ‘lift’ more than a few mm so there is no danger of it falling out of the unit altogether. Finally on top to the right is the power switch having a two stage led which glows blue when switched ON and also red when the drive is being accessed.
To the front of the unit there are two USB ports and a multi-card reader supporting the SD, SDHC, MMC and MS formats.
To the rear are the DC power-in jack, LAN socket (with activity led’s), USB and eSATA sockets. There is also a reset switch to be used should the device stop responding.
So that’s a lot of connectivity in one little unit. On the front page of this review we showed the unit populated with a 3.5” desktop drive – here it is with a 2.5” drive, a USB stick and an SD card!
So, now we’ve seen the device let’s move on to take a look at some test results.
Test System and Methodology
As we have done in previous storage device testing we will use hard drive benchmarking software to determine the performance of the Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Pro LAN, namely HD Tune and HD Tach. Tests will be run to measure the read performance using all of the connectivity options. We will use both a 2.5” drive and a 3.5” drive to test against.
Hard Drives tested:
Western Digital WD5000AAKS – 500GB Caviar Blue with 16MB cache, 7200rpm
Fujitsu MHZ2160BH – 160GB, 8MB cache, 5400rpm
Benchmark Software:
Test 1: Read performance in HD Tune 2.55
Test 2: read performance in HD Tach 3.0.4.0 (long bench with 32MB zones)
Test System used:
CPU: Intel Core i7 920
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
RAM: OCZ Blade OCZ3B2000C9LV6GK PC3-16000 3x2GB
Case: Silverstone FT01B-W Fortress
PSU: BeQuiet! Dark Power Pro 850W
CPU Cooler: Corsair H50 with 2 x Akasa Apache 120mm fans
System Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD
eSATA PCIe Card: Sitecom XC-043
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Test Results 1 – USB 2.0 port
HD Tach results (note that the USB interface shows both drives as ‘Generic External’ type).
HD Tune results.
The Fujitsu 2.5” drive shows an average read speed of 33.6 MB/s in HD Tach, and 29.7 MB/s in HD Tune.
The WD 3.5” drive shows an average read speed of 36.9 MB/s in HD Tach, and 34.5 MB/s in HD Tune.
The burst speed on both drives is also being limited to a max reported of 37.5 MB/s for the 3.5” drive, and 30 MB/s for the 2.5” drive.
So, USB 2.0 is certainly causing a bottleneck for both drives as can be seen by the results above.
Test Results 2 – eSATA port
HD Tach results (note that the eSATA interface shows both drives as the correct type).
HD Tune Results.
The Fujitsu 2.5” drive shows an average read speed of 52.8 MB/s in HD Tach, and 50.6 MB/s in HD Tune.
The WD 3.5” drive shows an average read speed of 105.4 MB/s in HD Tach, and 99.1 MB/s in HD Tune.
The burst speed on both drives is also being reported at around 117 MB/s!
So, eSATA is a huge performance improvement for both drives as can be seen by the results above, and the curve of the graphs shows that the Fujitsu 2.5” drive is no longer being bottlenecked by the connection at all, but the WD 3.5” still seems to have some bottlenecking up to around the 70% mark as shown by the horizontal graph line.
Test Results 3 – LAN port
HD Tach results (note that the LAN interface also shows both drives as ‘Generic External’ type).
HD Tune Results.
The Fujitsu 2.5” drive shows an average read speed of 6.1 MB/s in HD Tach, and 5.8 MB/s in HD Tune.
The WD 3.5” drive shows an average read speed of 6.1 MB/s in HD Tach, and 5.8 MB/s in HD Tune.
The burst speed on both drives is also being limited to a max reported of 5.1 MB/s for the 3.5” drive, and 5.2 MB/s for the 2.5” drive.
So, LAN… What went wrong here? These results are terrible when compared to USB, let alone eSATA. Way back on page 2 of this review (Features and Specifications) we had a fleeting glimpse of the answer – who spotted it?
• External interfaces: USB2.0, eSATA and LAN (RJ-45/100 Mbit/s)
That’s right – 100Mbit/s!! (which equates to a theoretical maximum of 12.5MB/s – see online converter here)
Why oh why isn’t the SATA QuickPort Pro LAN equipped with a gigabit LAN (1000Mbit/s) connection as almost everything else is these days?
Test Result Summary
We have graphed the results of the tests to show only the average read speeds of each drive on each interface.
Both charts show a very similar story so we can safely say that our results show an accurate picture of performance which are not affected by the testing software used.
There is a very clear and massive difference between all 3 interfaces. The USB 2.0 interface is clearly a bottleneck for both the drives tested. The eSATA interface shows huge gains for the 3.5” drive and significant improvements for the 2.5” drive showing that we are now seeing differences due to the drives themselves – the faster spin speed and larger cache memory of the 3.5” drive is clearly giving it a considerable advantage over the 2.5” drive.
The LAN… well, as we’ve already said it is a massive disappointment especially given that it is the major addition to this model over and above previous models in the range.
To attempt to transfer any significant amount of data at a paltry 6.1MB/s (taking the best result here) would be a painfully slow process and one which would surely annoy any user to the point of giving up altogether.
Conclusion
Powered and running – note the blue and red led’s
The Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Pro LAN started off promising so much – the flexibility and connectivity of a hot-swappable NAS enclosure with the portability and low cost of a stand alone external disk drive. Unfortunately it rather seems that Sharkoon have missed a trick here by not specifying gigabit LAN for the device and settling on the cheaper 10/100Mbit standard. As already stated on page 2 of this review the Features and Specifications from Sharkoon’s website do make mention of this – however it is conspicuously lacking on the actual packaging itself so I’ll revise my final comment at the bottom of page 3 Packaging… ‘Everything is NOT as it should be’.
Whilst testing the unit we also tried the front USB and Card Reader slots since one of the possible benefits of the LAN connectivity was to be able to share attached devices without having to have set them up as shares within Windows and leave the attached PC running for others on the LAN to access them. These slots are available when the device is connected through any of the available interfaces, but alas their throughput would be limited to that of the chosen interface, which realistically means you should choose to use either the USB or eSATA interfaces only, which in turn means we are back to setting up those shares in Windows… another wasted opportunity due to the non-gigabit LAN we feel.
Whilst there is no doubt that when in eSATA mode this is a very useful device allowing users to hot-swap between multiple hard drives and access content almost as fast as if the drives were internally mounted but without any of the hassle of going inside your PC every time you wanted to change drive, it is spoiled by the lack of high speed LAN and we therefore must consider if this device is really worth having over it’s lesser sibling the ‘SATA QuickPort Pro’ which has everything this does except for the LAN and costs about £10 less…
We’ll leave you to decide that one for yourselves!
Pros
• Adequate USB 2.0 performance
• Excellent eSATA performance
• 2.5” and 3.5” SATA HDD compatibility with Hot Swap
• Convenient eject button and status LED’s
• Sturdy build quality
• Front connectors available through any interfaces
Cons
• Lack of gigabit LAN
• Cost
We would like to thank Sharkoon for this sample. Discuss this review on our forums.
