10. Testing The EZ-Upgrade Kit As An External Drive Case

Since the EZ-Upgrade kit external drive case's form factor offers added value, it is well worth looking at the performance of the USB 2.0 interface this solution uses. The theoretical peak bandwidth of the USB 2.0 interface is specified at 480 MBit/s, which translates to about 60 MB/s. However, in practice, even external desktop -hard disks with a USB 2.0 interface will only reach a maximum transfer rate of 32 MB/s, as previous THG lab tests have shown.

Data Transfer Diagram: When the hard drive is installed in the notebook...

... and when the same drive is used via the notebook's USB 2.0 port

Both diagrams show the same characteristic curve as well as nearly identical peaks and troughs. Therefore, the USB 2.0 interface is obviously not be the limiting factor here.

As a result, we can safely endorse using the kit as a fast and reliable external "data dump."

Conclusion

With the help of Apricorn's EZ-Upgrade kit, upgrading a notebook hard drive via USB 2.0 becomes a piece of cake. Anyone who knows how to handle a screwdriver should be able to replace a notebook's drive with a new one within an hour - including the time needed to transfer the data from one to the other(*). In addition, after the successful upgrade, the casing for the external drive offers added value, since the old drive can continue its tour of duty as an external mass-storage device.

As you can tell, we were impressed with this kit. Nonetheless, there are a few things on our wish list that would make this set perfect, in our opinion. For instance, we would prefer a warp resistant metal casing without screws to the slightly cheap-looking "plastic box". Also, considering the kit costs $90, would a bag for storing the case when on the move be too much to ask?

(*)based on the assumption, that the source drive has a 20 GB capacity.