Introduction

I would like to thank Akasa Europe for providing the review sample.

The Akasa Group of companies was founded in 1997 with offices in Taipei and London. Their management team is experienced in Electronic and Electro-mechanical product development. The core business is based around heat sink design, manufacture and distribution to the PC manufacturing sector. The company also supplies the Distribution channel with PC thermal solutions. Their market leading portfolio of Retail based PC products aimed at the Custom PC market has been supplemented with a successful range of PC peripherals marketed into the mainstream PC channel.

The Akasa integral ESATA is available in three different colors:

Features

• Easy to install
• Supports any 3.5" IDE PATA or SATA HDD up to 400Gb
• ESATA transfer speeds up to 1.5Gbit/s
• ESATA or USB 2.0 transfer switchable
• Sleek aluminum case for efficient heat dissipation
• Easy stack design for smart use of space
• Blue LED power and access indicator
• Plug and Play hot swappable
• OS Support Win 98SE/ME/2000/PX, Mac OS 8.6 and above

We received the black variant for testing.

Packaging & Contents

The cardboard cover box is just like all the other Akasa products, with the large logo on the right top corner. The front is white and features the model and a picture of the enclosure, while the back lists all the features in a variety of languages. The layout is very familiar and serves its purpose well. Returning buyers will always know what to look for.


As always, there is a white box with the integral logo inside the cover box. Inside you will find the neatly tucked away enclosure and all the required extras.


Akasa has included all needed cables. There is an ESATA cable, an USB 2.0 cable, a SATA power adapter, screws and the mandatory power cord. The power brick is nothing out of the ordinary. It is just as big as most used for these enclosures. The power brick is rated at 2A and is needed because USB 2.0 maxes out at 500mA or 0.5A.


There is also a CD, which includes a digital version of the manual and a see-through, plastic stand. The manual contains quite a few different languages and comes fully illustrated. So you should not have any problems with installation and setup of the enclosure.

A Closer Look & Installation