DecisionalReview.info

The Hard Drive Toaster

I have been buying Vantec external hard drive enclosures for several years nows, and they have allowed me to add terabytes of storage to my computers for video and audio files. When I saw this thing, I said to myself, Cool!

Vantec has designed the NST-D100SU in white plastic to make a toaster analogy, you know, the thing you put bread in and it pops up when it’s done. Perhaps a better comparison is to an old 8-track tape player. Hard drives are about the size of old 8-track cartridges, and there were players that looked like this (but usually with a 1970’s-looking wood grain).

In any event, you can now store a terabyte of information on an external hard drive and swap them out like 8-tracks. For people doing back-ups, testing or cloning hard drives, or who have massive data collections, this is great.

You stick a SATA hard drive down into the device until you feel it make contact and push down. You can’t really do it wrong unless you try to.

Then you connect the device to a USB port on your PC or laptop, push on the big power button, and in a few seconds, your PC will see the hard drive. The only thing you have to do is the first time you use a new hard drive, you have to format it. I stay with one brand of hard drives, Western Digital, and I have its Data Lifeguard Tools already installed on my PCs. I start up the software, and it usually recognizes the new hard drive instantly, asks me if I want to format it, and the software sets it up in about 30 seconds. Once the hard drive is formatted, your PC will recognize it and assign it a drive letter. You can then copy to the new hard drive as much as you want. When you finish, remember to use the USB Safely Remove Hardware icon to remove the device. Then power it off by pressing the big power button and lift out the hard drive, and you’re ready to slap in another one.

This will save you the cost of having to buy external hard drive enclosures at $35 a pop, especially if you are simply archiving data. I would suggest that you put your bare hard drives in the static-free bags they originally came in, or in Ziploc bags to keep out the dust. And then you will want to store the hard drives someplace where they won’t be falling off a shelf or getting zapped by static electricity.

Even though I think this device is great, I only give it four stars for two reasons. The first reason is that it doesn’t really replace a hard drive enclosure. An enclosure will protect your hard drive a lot more than this rather open device. The second reason is that you need to be careful to turn the power off before you remove the hard drive. I know I’ve been tempted to just yank it out first, but if you do that, you could be risking hard drive damage.

Otherwise, this is a great device if you have a need to swap out hard drive like 8-track tapes. With one terabyte hard drives now going for less than $200, I know I’m rethinking my storage strategy to copying all my CDs and DVDs to a hard drive. You could store 1400 uncompressed CDs or 250 DVDs (or a mix of the two) on a terabyte hard drive, virtually eliminating entire bookshelves of disks. For another $100, you could buy an INOI media player 3.5″ INOi MH720 USB2.0 Digital A/V Ext SATA Media HD Case, which would then elminate the need for CD and DVD players, and you could have your collection all in the palm of your hand. It blows your mind!!!

Update (2/6/2012): I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, Vantec NexStar NST-D100SU 2.5-Inch/3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 and eSATA Hard Drive Dock White Electronics, was written by D. Petitpas.

The average rating for this item is 2.3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.