Introduction

The external drive market has always introduced new technologies and expanded its capabilities as the popularity for external drives increases. Originally introduced in late 2005, the External SATA (eSATA) interface boasts 6x better speeds than USB and FireWire. Various external drive manufacturers have started manufacturing eSATA drives and one of the latest offerings from Thecus, the N2050, features not only eSATA but USB 2.0 as well and the ability to install 2 drives in either RAID 0 or 1 configuration. In addition to checking out the Thecus N2050's regular operation, the eSATA interface has been put through some tests to see if it really is as fast and as capable as the developers promise.

Features and Specs
- Hardware RAID
- Striping (RAID 0)
- Mirroring (RAID 1)
- eSATA - up to 3.0 Gbps
- USB 2.0 - up to 480 Mbps
- Plug-n-play
- Up to 1 TB total capacity
- 2x 3.5" HDD Bays
- Up to 500GB each HDD capacity (1TB total)
- USB 2.0 up to 480 Mbps
- eSATA
- SATA I up to 1.5 Gbps
- SATA II up to 3 Gbps
- Dimensions: 160mm x 85mm x 200mm
- AC Voltage: 100-240 VAC
- Frequency: 47-63 Hz AC

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