First off, the Slide Pro is inexpensive. With an MRSP about 2 Euros lower than anything with USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity on the market today.

That said the Slide Pro seems to be a lack luster attempt at an enclosure. From a design aspect, it is simple and somewhat boring, while little to no thought has been put into the user interface or how to offer the best user experience. Sure the Slide Pro is a fast enclosure, but considering the small difference that it makes in comparison to real life headaches, it leaves us wanting more. Simple aspects like an efficient cooling setup in form of sufficient ventilation or a nice large and easily accessible button up front for the one touch backup are missing. These are by no means features out of this world, as many other manufacturers have managed to offer such. Instead Spire has chosen to insert a fan instead of going to the drawing board and figuring out how to solve the heat dissapation issue. The same goes for the OTB button, which is not only tiny, but located in the rear of the enclosure. The same heartless approach goes for the application CD. It is quite easy to create a small UI which is easy to understand and starts the to be installed software instead of advertising the location of their offices around the world and leaving the guess work of which software is supposed to function with the bought enclosure to the end user.

Sure, the Spire Slide Pro is a speed deamon with a lot of silly and somewhat frustrating shortcomings - most of which could have been avoided. That leaves us with the fact that it is very affordable, offers a one touch backup and manages very good performance - all that is still enough for the budget award.