| VIZO Paragon 2.5” External Hard Drive Enclosure | ||
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Product: VIZO Paragon 2.5” External Hard Drive Enclosure Let’s face it; hard drive enclosures represent one sector of the computer industry in which innovative products are few and far between. The Vizo Paragon 2.5” HDD enclosure is not one of those products, but it looks nice and is manufactured to the highest quality standards. Packaging: The packaging that the Paragon arrived in looks professional and contains relatively understandable English, with cleanly organized areas for system requirements and product descriptions. Unfortunately, the box arrived slightly damaged, but that can be attributed to the long shipping distance, from Taiwan. The interior packaging is quite sturdy, however, and the enclosure was undamaged.
Inside the box is the enclosure itself, along with the usual assortment of accessories.
Enclosure Impressions: On first opening the packaging, the first thing that struck me was the professional-looking enclosure inside. The drive has a mirror finish, and when viewed from either end, reminds me of a PSP.
Installation: Installation of the drive was tricky. While Vizo was thoughtful enough to include a micro-screwdriver with the drive, the screws holding the IDE board to the plastic bracket escaped my notice, and I spent a few tense moments attempting to install the drive with the bracket still attached. Fortunately, I found the screws before I bent any pins and the rest of the installation went smoothly.
File Transfers and Backup: Like nearly every portable hard drive, file transfers are accomplished using drag-and-drop in Windows Explorer. It works fine; I never had a problem with it. Backup is done using BackupKingX, software which I had never heard of before but works surprisingly well. It allows you to set full backup times, sync times, and also allows for reverts to previous states, similar to Windows system restore. Its UI was also written in surprisingly Engrish-free English and was easy to configure without having to resort to the user-guide. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the 1-touch backup button on the back of the enclosure to do anything, with or without the software installed. Using the free FreshDiagnose tool and a Hitachi Travelstar 60 GB 5400RPM hard drive, I registered 15.67MB/s read speed and 24.88MB/s write speed. Conclusion: Based on its professional appearance, quality of build, useful included accessories, and useful software, I would recommend the Vizo Paragon 2.5” HDD Enclosure. Maximum CPU gives 5/5  Pros: + Professional looking case Cons: - Case picks up fingerprints easily |
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