OYEN DIGITAL EB2 2.5" HDD ENCLOSURE

We've all seen those $20 2.5" HDD enclosures with either eSATA, USB, 1394, or a combination thereof.  But here's a truly innovative 2.5" HDD enclosure from Oyen Digital, the EB-2.  This enclosure will be able to connect to just about any high-speed external interface on nearly any platform.  It is probably the only 2.5" enclosure on earth which has eSATA, USB 2.0, and FireWire 800 connectors.

The EB2 is made from an aluminum extrusion with plastic end caps.  This makes the whole product extremely lightweight.  A couple screws on the sides fasten the enclosure together.  A single green LED in front indicates power and flickers when the drive is being accessed.  The retail package includes several cables, but it seems lacking compared to other enclosure products.  There is no 6-pin to 4-pin 1394 cable, no handy carrying case, and no SATA to eSATA cable.  It does, however, include a dual-USB-to-DC power-only Y-cable, allowing the unit to be powered solely by USB ports.  Note that a third USB port is needed if transferring data via USB.  Note that there are no cooling slots or any other way to even passively cool the HDD inside other than by internal convection to the aluminum enclosure. 

On the other end are the connectors.  Yes folks, that weirdo port on the left is a COMBINATION USB 2.0 and eSATA connector.  The two in the middle are FireWire 800 ports, which of course are backward-compatible to FireWire 400.  On the right is the DC power input jack.  Back to the combo connector, this indicates that the USB port is the type-A, or host receptacle.  According to USB-IF rules, type-A connectors are allowed on hosts (PCs), not on endpoints (devices).  Having this configuration requires a USB A-A cable, not permitted in the eyes of the USB-IF.  The EB2 will unlikely pass USB-IF certification.  If space was a concern on the back panel, a miniUSB connector, and a 4-pin FireWire connector would have been more useful than a second FireWire 800 port and the combo connector. 

Inside, we have the PCB.  Layout is very clean indicating high-quality manufacturing and good design. 

The star of the show here is the Oxford 924 chip.  This single chip performs all bridging functions between USB 2.0, FireWire, and SATA.  Other chips on the board are the TI 1394 PHY, flash memory, and voltage regulators. 

We tested the enclosure on a 2.1 GHz AMD Athlon with 2GB on an ATI Xpress3200-based motherboard.  The HDD is a 300GB Fujitsu MHX2300BT:

One problem is that this HDD is too tall for the enclosure.  This drive is 12.5mm whereas most 2.5" HDDs are only 9.5mm tall.  Too bad the EB2 accepts only 9.5mm drives:

We used HD Tach 3.0.1.0 to test speeds using 8MB zones on the three different interfaces:

Native SATA connection to HDD nearly exactly the same as eSATA connection (< 3% difference)

FireWire 400

USB 2.0