Installation & Software

Installation

To uncover the screws to open the enclosure, the two rubber covers on each side need to be peeled off. This works if you have long fingernails, otherwise you may want to use something thin you have lying around. The hard drive of choice can then be connected to the IDE cable and Molex connector. Screws on each side are used to keep the drive in place.


Once the cover is replaced, the power is connected. The blue power LED turns on right away. The fan is very quiet even at the fastest setting.

Software

Once the 8cm CD is placed in the drive, the Autorun Feature brings up above screen. There are two items that can be installed. The ITE GPIO drivers and the ITE Backup software.
There are no drivers for the card reader as it uses the ones included in Windows XP.


Both software titles install without further user intervention and the installers used are identical.


The backup software is quite crude. You will have a hard time finding your way around the software at first. On the left you select the folder to be backed up. The right shows the actual backup folder and its contents. You can either set a schedule for backups or syncronize the two folders to keep the backup up to date. The software can also tell you quite acurately how much free space is available on the hard drive.


The About Window just shows that the software is supplied by ITE. Akasa is relying on their implementation to use the functionality of the enclosure. It would have been nice to see a specific program from Akasa with a more user friendly GUI - who uses purple background in programs these days?