Ridata RDESSD32G-R-BX 32 GB External Solid State Drive Racer with Dual eSATA and USB Connectors
- eSATA Multiple Operation System supported, no driver needed in Windows 2003/XP/Vista, Mac 9.x or later, Linux Kernel 2.4 or later.
- Full Compliance with USB 2.0; true Plug & Play connection.
- USB bus powered– from USB port, no external power or battery needed for with any USB port 2.0
- eSATA bus powered: Powered from USB port, no external power or battery needed (*for use with notebook combination eSATA/USB ports)
- Shock resistant, noise-free and secure data retention, plus low power consumption
This external Solid State Drive (SSD) is the first of its kind with both an eSATA connector (eSATA connector for notebookeSATA ports only) and a USB drive connector. The ultra compact size gives it pocket portability with up to 32GB capacity. Easily boot up your software / operating system via the eSATA connector and transfer huge data files and video files quickly and easily at speeds up to 85MB per second Read / 50MB per second Write sustained through the eSATA*. Or use the USB connection to transfer via USB port to any computer at up to 33MB per second Read and up to 28MB per second Write*. Plus, get the high performance and benefits of SSD: super fast boot up and transfer time via the eSATA connector, no cooling needed, shock resistant, noise-free, secure data retention, and low power consumption. *Please note: As with all flash memory products, transfer speed results vary depending on the corresponding device or notebook being used…. More >>
Ridata RDESSD32G-R-BX 32 GB External Solid State Drive Racer with Dual eSATA and USB Connectors
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3 comments
J. Egsworth on November 10, 2009 at 9:18 pm
The drive I got is either completely defective, in which case the one star rating still applies, or the description is simply misleading:
You cannot plug in the USB side of the drive and use it as a storage device. The USB connector is for power ONLY. If you plug in the USB side only, you will get an “Unrecognized USB device” error or “Unknown Device” error. Sometimes the drive is actually read correctly from USB, but in these cases WinXP will continually ask you to format the drive, which it will not allow (just gives a generic “Windows could not format this drive” error).
The ONLY way to get this drive to work is to plug in the eSATA and THEN plug in the USB for power (some machines have combination USB/eSATA ports in which case you can plug in simply the eSATA). So be warned – do not make the mistake of thinking you can plug the eSATA into one computer and then have backwards USB compatibility with older machines. The drive does not work that way, despite the way it implies to be “USB 2.0 compatible” in the description.
Also the eSATA seems quite flaky as well – sometimes it seems to be recognized, and other times it does not (tried with 4 different computers, all of which work fine with normal USB thumb drives).
Christopher on November 10, 2009 at 11:32 pm
We purchased 8 of these and so far 2 weeks later, 2 of the drives have flaked out and are no longer working (partition size shows as 1.92GB and the drives will not format). When they worked, they were incredibly fast, but the data on them is unreliable at best. You will copy data to it, plug it into another machine to copy the data from it and it will say “Drive is not initialized” and presto, you’ve lost all your data.. Don’t waste your time!!
ZERO STARS!!!
P. Nguyen on November 11, 2009 at 1:02 am
After a week of extensive use on Vista, Windows 7, and Leopard.
(+) Works well out of the box.
(+) Benefits of a SSD such as no moving part, noiseless, low power consumption. Can be used as a fast external boot volume if your BIOS supports it.
(+) Build: Very nicely designed and feel solid in your hand. I also own the Kingston DataTraveler 64 GB stick. the RiDATA kicks DataTraveler’s behind in terms of speed and build quality. The massive capacity is both comforting and unnerving; I would not risk losing that much of my personal data, should it get misplaced or corrupted. The Kingston’s build is a little plasticky & flimsy. RiDATA has nicer form factor than the Cavalry Pelican Series but a little slower in term of theoretical transfer speed.
(+) Versatility: both USB & eSATA, which offers faster transfer speed compared to USB 2.0.
(+) Speed: Rated the fastest portable SSD stick on the market by tomsguide(dot)com in Feb 2009. SSD is faster than flash. A 700MB avi movie is transferred in 30 seconds using the USB port. I haven’t tried the eSATA port yet.
(-/+) No built-in security measures (software, biometrics, etc).
(-/+) Need a special USB cable for non-powered eSATA port.
(-/+) Reliability: Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) is >250k hours, compared to > 1,000k hours for internal drives. But realistically, one probably never reach that number.
*** Wishful thinking – incorporation of bluetooth module for wireless data transfer and bluetooth computer proximity lockdown software option.
*** Note – SSD prices are a rather rapid descent, not unlike the platter hard drives of years past. So if you **need** a nice external SSD now, i would recommend this one. However, there is no true urgency to acquire one now if you can wait.