Performance

USB 2.0

The Spire Slide Pro is actually quite fast according the HD Tach. With an average read of 34.9 MB/s and a CPU utilization of just 3% the unit manages to place itself in the upper segment of our benchmarks. I should mention, that nowadays the difference in performance with USB 2.0 is becoming smaller and smaller between the devices, so a difference of 0.2 or 0.3 MB/s is not something you will feel during everyday use. It will be interesting to see how USB 3.0 handles things in the near future.




ATTO confirms the benchmark read speeds while also giving us a write performance of 28.5 MB/s at most. This is about 1 MB/s below the hard drives actual write performance when connected directly to the SATA port of the PC.

eSATA

Just a quick bench with eSATA connected instead of USB 2.0, we got a declining performance which is identical to that of an internal drive.

One Touch Backup

Upon inserting the 80 mm CD, the following Flash interface is shown. You have several options in terms of what drive you are using and what connectivity. There is no mention of model specific software, so many - including myself - are easily confused, as the Spire Pro has to viable and interchangable options: "SATA to USB" and "SATA to eSATA". Clicking on one of these buttons opens a browser website with a weird folder in which the software is buried. An end user does not want to see the different Spire offices around the world, but instead would we would like an easy and simple interface. This is certainly not hard to do and does not take a big investement of both time or money.


I had the choice between two applications to install. One was simply called "One Button". After Installing it, I suddenly had access to an application named "PLBackup"


This software looks very simple and consists of three tabs. The "Welcome" one simply allows you to trigger the backup or restore function defined in the second and third tabs. It will work, but I wonder how it will act with system files which are in use for example. With this application there does not seem to be any one touch backup fanctionality tied in, so this one does not look like the correct application to install for the Spire Pro.


The other program is called "FNNet PC Clone EX Lite". We have actually seen this in the past and it does work well for basic on-demand backup and restore functionality.


This software is triggered by the press of the tiny OTB button on the Spire Slide Pro. Once activated, hitting it again will start the backup process of any selected files and folders. Easy as pie - and it can also backup system files. This program is more like it and should suffice for home and small office users wanting to backup their documents, pictures and other information.