Overview
With a tide of External Hard drives swooping the Tech market, here is yet another external drive from Western Digital with 1.5TB of storage enclosed in a very sturdy metal enclosure. The Elements External Hard drive 3.5” provides a radical solution to store all your videos, movies, music, data and files. Most important of all, the drive is very cheap for the whopping 1.5TB storage. The hard drive provides some promising specifications that will make it a competitor in the market.
Specifications
| Features | Description |
| 1. Device Type | Hard drive – External Hard drive |
| 2. Width | 4.9 in |
| 3. Depth | 8 in |
| 4. Height | 1.4 in |
| 5. Weight | 2.2 lbs |
| 6. Capacity | 1.5 TB |
| 7. Interface Type | Hi-Speed USB |
| 8. Features | Plug-n-Play, |
| Power-saving technology, | |
| Easy formatting | |
| 9. Interface Transfer Rate | 480 Mbps |
| 10. Data Transfer Interface | USB 2.0 |
| 11. Rotation Speed | 5400 rpm |
| 12. Storage controller type | USB External – External – USB |
| 13. Expansion Interfaces | USB 2.0, 1 * Hi-Speed USB |
| 14. Cables Included | 1 * USB cable- External |
| 15. Microsoft Certifications | Compatible with Windows 7 |
| 16. EPA Energy star compliant | Yes |
| 17. Power source | Included power adapter |
| 18. Voltage Required | AC 120/230 V |
| 19. OS Required | Apple Mac OS X 10.4 , 10.5, 10.6 |
| Microsoft Windows Vista/XP/ 7 |
Features
Elements External Hard drive 1.5 TB 3.5” is a 1.5 Kg drive which provides you lots of space for all your data files. It although requires an external power source that might make it bulky for certain people.
Elements External Hard Drive is a sturdy black drive. It is enclosed by a very hard metallic enclosure that makes it suitable for every day use at home and office. The black color is aesthetically pleasing to use.
The external drive fancies a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface that provides rather average transfer speeds. You will find a socket to plug your AC power charger and USB 2.0 on the same side.
One sad disadvantage in this external hard drive is that it only has one transfer interface. With several triple and quad interfaces hard drives surfacing the Elements External 1.5 TB will look very inferior. The rotation speed of the drive is only 5400 rpm instead of 7200 rpm. With 1.5 TB storage space this very low rotational speed will make reading from and writing to the hard disk very slow.
Unlike certain external hard drives Elements External comes preformatted, so that you can just plug-in and use with your PC to back up data immediately. This eliminates the necessity for a software CD. The drive is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems. Well for use with Mac you will have to format it.
Western Digital has also incorporated Energy Conservation technology into the drive that reduces power consumption when not in use.
Cost
Elements External Hard drive 1.5 TB 3.5” is available for just $69 USD.
Review
Elements External 1.5 TB 3.5” is a rugged black external hard drive, with a compact and simple enclosure.
The preformatted drive enables plug and play feature, which is very welcoming. The energy conservation technology is credible.
As for the performance it is not on par at all with drives incorporating eSATA and FireWire ports for transfers. Transfer speeds are rather average and could have been provided eSATA interface.
On the whole it is seriously under priced for the huge 1.5TB space it provides and might as well be sufficient for everyday home and office use.
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