Review: JJ-23VSUES SATA to USB2/eSATA enclosure

A

Arno Wagner

Published in the hopes that it is useful to somebody.

The Jou Jye JJ-23VSUES is an external 3.5" enclosure for SATA
drives. It has both an USB2.0 and an eSATA connector. Tested with a
1TB Samsung HD103UJ SATA drive. Other interface variants are available
and should have similar mechanical and thermal characteristics.


Construction:

The enclosure is made of plastic. It looks good from a distance, and
acceptable close up. It is sturdy enough for normal operation, but
will probably not survive a fall from desk hight. Given that much
sturdier looking aluminium enclosures do also not survive such a fall,
this is not a real disadvantage. In addition, such a fall will likely
kill your disk anyways. (Side note: I had one Revoltec Alu Book 2 slip
through my fingers. As it turns out, the disk is held in place by two
flimsy metal pieces, which bend easily and the front side is plastic
that can break break on such an impact. The disk was damaged enough
that I just managed to pull the files off before it died.)

Disk mounting is by 4 screws and adequate. Mounting the disk is
easy. The foot stand for vertical positioning is not attached to the
case, but stability is good and it has 4 rubber feet. The disk cannot
be stacked when horizontal. In principle it should be possible by
adding 4 rubber feet about 5mm tall, but as it is, the decoration on
one side prevents stacking. Operating a single enclosure horizontally
is possible, as the air-inlets are on the front and side and the
exhaust is on the back. However, there are no rubber feet and it may
slide around.


Cooling and Power:

This enclosure features a 80mm fan with two speed settings, selectable
by a switch on the back. With a Samsung 1TB drive, the low setting was
inaudible, the high setting was audible over the disk, but not
dominant. This is a relatively quiet disk drive. Airflow is from the
sides and front to under the disk and out the back. With low speed
setting, the Samsung operates at 9C over ambient temperature when idle
and goes up to 14C over ambient during a long SMART self-test. Copying
a lot of files to the disk with rsync brought it up to 13C over
ambient temperature, while overwriting the disk sequentially resulted
in 15C over ambient temperature. (Side note: For this disk, the
average write speed over the whole surface is 78MB/s, which I think is
pretty impressive.) I did not measure temperatures for the high fan
speed setting. All temperatures measured with the disk-integrated
temperature sensor. Ambient temperature measured with a +/- 1C IR
thermometer.

For use with a different disk, I advise to monitor temperatures under
load for some time (connect with eSATA for that and use a SMART
monitor, e.g. SpeedFan), and select low or high fan speed as
needed. If you do not mind the fan noise, select high fan speed.

The power adapter is a standard 12V/2A brick type with a hollow plug,
5.5mm on the outside and 2.5mm on the inside. Plus is on the inside
and minus in the outside of the plug. Several other enclosures use the
same power plug and rating, e.g. the 3.5" enclosures by Agrosy. Mains
connection is a wide-range 100-240V with an fixedly attached euro-plug
power cord, but that may vary depending on where you buy it. The
enclosure has its own 5V switching regulator, of standard design
using quality components.


Interfaces and Speed:

The interface chip is a JM20336. USB2.0 gives the customary 25MB/s for
reading and writing, same as all other USB 2.0 enclosures I ever
used. eSATA gives full SATA speeds. BTW, there is some garbled info on
the carton that seems to indicate it does not supports Linux. This
enclosure works fine with Linux, both for USB2.0 and for eSATA.

One eSATA cable and one USB cable is included. There is no eSATA
slot-cover adapter to use an internal SATA connector as eSATA. If you
do not already have an eSATA connector in your PC, you may want to get
one of these adapters to benefit from faster transfer speeds and full
access to SMART data.


Verdict:

While some aluminium enclosures may look better, the design is
acceptable. Construction is reasonable. The cooling solution is good
and should, on high setting, keep even power-hungry disks at
acceptable temperatures. The price is at the same level as
aluminium enclosures, which I think it is justified.



(c) 2007 Arno Wagner, permission to reproduce in full or in parts
is hereby granted, provided that this notice is included.
 
T

Timothy Daniels

Arno Wagner said:
Published in the hopes that it is useful to somebody.

The Jou Jye JJ-23VSUES is an external 3.5" enclosure for SATA
drives. It has both an USB2.0 and an eSATA connector. Tested
with a 1TB Samsung HD103UJ SATA drive. Other interface
variants are available and should have similar mechanical and
thermal characteristics.


Construction:

The enclosure is made of plastic. It looks good from a distance,
and acceptable close up. It is sturdy enough for normal operation,
but will probably not survive a fall from desk hight. Given that
much sturdier looking aluminium enclosures do also not survive
such a fall, this is not a real disadvantage. In addition, such a fall
will likely kill your disk anyways. (Side note: I had one Revoltec
Alu Book 2 slip through my fingers. As it turns out, the disk is held
in place by two flimsy metal pieces, which bend easily and the
front side is plastic that can break break on such an impact. The
disk was damaged enough that I just managed to pull the files off
before it died.)

Disk mounting is by 4 screws and adequate. Mounting the disk is
easy. The foot stand for vertical positioning is not attached to the
case, but stability is good and it has 4 rubber feet. The disk cannot
be stacked when horizontal. In principle it should be possible by
adding 4 rubber feet about 5mm tall, but as it is, the decoration on
one side prevents stacking. Operating a single enclosure horizontally
is possible, as the air-inlets are on the front and side and the
exhaust is on the back. However, there are no rubber feet and it
may slide around.


Cooling and Power:

This enclosure features a 80mm fan with two speed settings,
selectable by a switch on the back. With a Samsung 1TB drive,
the low setting was inaudible, the high setting was audible over
the disk, but not dominant. This is a relatively quiet disk drive.
Airflow is from the sides and front to under the disk and out the
back. With low speed setting, the Samsung operates at 9C over
ambient temperature when idle and goes up to 14C over ambient
during a long SMART self-test. Copying a lot of files to the disk
with rsync brought it up to 13C over ambient temperature, while
overwriting the disk sequentially resulted in 15C over ambient
temperature. (Side note: For this disk, the average write speed
over the whole surface is 78MB/s, which I think is pretty impressive.)
I did not measure temperatures for the high fan speed setting. All
temperatures measured with the disk-integrated temperature sensor.
Ambient temperature measured with a +/- 1C IR thermometer.

For use with a different disk, I advise to monitor temperatures
under load for some time (connect with eSATA for that and use
a SMART monitor, e.g. SpeedFan), and select low or high fan
speed as needed. If you do not mind the fan noise, select high fan
speed.

The power adapter is a standard 12V/2A brick type with a
hollow plug, 5.5mm on the outside and 2.5mm on the inside. Plus
is on the inside and minus in the outside of the plug. Several other
enclosures use the same power plug and rating, e.g. the 3.5"
enclosures by Agrosy. Mains connection is a wide-range
100-240V with an fixedly attached euro-plug power cord, but
that may vary depending on where you buy it. The enclosure has
its own 5V switching regulator, of standard design using quality
components.


Interfaces and Speed:

The interface chip is a JM20336. USB2.0 gives the customary
25MB/s for reading and writing, same as all other USB 2.0
enclosures I ever used. eSATA gives full SATA speeds. BTW,
there is some garbled info on the carton that seems to indicate it
does not supports Linux. This enclosure works fine with Linux,
both for USB2.0 and for eSATA.

One eSATA cable and one USB cable is included. There is no
eSATA slot-cover adapter to use an internal SATA connector
as eSATA. If you do not already have an eSATA connector in
your PC, you may want to get one of these adapters to benefit
from faster transfer speeds and full access to SMART data.


Verdict:

While some aluminium enclosures may look better, the design is
acceptable. Construction is reasonable. The cooling solution is
good and should, on high setting, keep even power-hungry disks
at acceptable temperatures. The price is at the same level as
aluminium enclosures, which I think it is justified.



(c) 2007 Arno Wagner, permission to reproduce in full or in parts
is hereby granted, provided that this notice is included.

Here's the Jou Jye webpage on it:
http://www.joujye-computer.com/external_jj-23vsuEs.htm
That fan orientation, BTW, I find very effective for cooling on
my Kingwin slid-in mobile HD rack.
Prices vary considerably for Jou Jye unit:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=570811
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/storage-adapters-cables/jou-jye-venussues-jj-23vsues/prices/
http://www.digitalo.de/shop/microsoft_dd_sql-36.html

Since Jou Jye seems to be sold primarily in Europe and the UK,
New World readers might be interested in Kingwin's similar offerings:
http://kingwin.com/product_pages/z135eu_bk.asp
Prices seem to run between $25 and $30:
http://www.censuspc.com/product-pr-7030.html
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/enclosures/m/52143523/

Back panel SATA/eSATA adapters that Arno mentions
can be bought here:
http://www.firewire-1394.com/external-sata-solutions.htm

If you lack a SATA port, various makers offer eSATA PCIe or
PCI cards:
http://siig.com/ViewProductList.aspx?catid=250
http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?product_id=168
Google for prices.

If you need more eSATA cables:
http://www.firewire-1394.com/sata-cables-shielded.htm
http://www.svc.com/esata-cable.html

*TimDaniels*
 
J

John Turco

Arno said:
Published in the hopes that it is useful to somebody.

The Jou Jye JJ-23VSUES is an external 3.5" enclosure for SATA
drives. It has both an USB2.0 and an eSATA connector. Tested with a
1TB Samsung HD103UJ SATA drive. Other interface variants are available
and should have similar mechanical and thermal characteristics.

While some aluminium enclosures may look better, the design is
acceptable. Construction is reasonable. The cooling solution is good
and should, on high setting, keep even power-hungry disks at
acceptable temperatures. The price is at the same level as
aluminium enclosures, which I think it is justified.

(c) 2007 Arno Wagner, permission to reproduce in full or in parts
is hereby granted, provided that this notice is included.


Hello, Arno:

Very thorough! However, to reach a much wider audience for future
reviews of this type, I would suggest investigating the following
Web site:

Epinions.com <http://www.epinions.com>

Good luck and Happy New Year!


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>
 

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