Final Thoughts
It seems like Vantec always comes out with products that make our lives easier and the NexStar MX is one of those. I can’t tell you how many extra 2.5-inch solid state drives that I have laying around collecting dust. It is great to have a small enclosure to put them in that also looks pretty slick on my desk.
Of course the best part about the NexStar MX is that it supports RAID 1 and RAID 0 modes. This way you have data redundancy. I will be using the NexStar MX to have a backup of all of my personal photos and videos. I ended up losing about a year of photos because I did not have them backed up correctly. The NexStar MX will make sure that it does not happen again.
Now we did not notice that much of a speed difference between the two RAID modes, JBOD, and single drive mode. This is because we are using solid state drives and were pretty much maxing out the USB 3.0 connection speed. Since the enclosure uses USB 3.0 you are going see very fast transfer speeds. This will make transferring files and backing things up very fast. Don’t worry if you don’t have USB 3.0 yet, the drive is backward compatible with USB 2.0.
Getting your drives installed could not be easier, even a beginner could do it. Setting the operation mode is also quite easy and the instructions are great if you are not sure what you are doing. The included USB cable is long enough for most situations too.
Honestly there is nothing I can really say bad about the NexStar MX, it allows you to make use of two 2.5-inch drives and put them in RAID mode. Right now you can pick up the NexStar MX for $59.99 at my favorite online retailer.
Overall ThinkComputers gives the Vantec NexStar MX Dual 2.5-inch Hard Drive Enclosure (NST-225MX-S3) a 10 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– Supports two 2.5-inch hard drives
– JBOD, RAID 0, and RAID 1 support
– Small and compact
– Mostly made of metal so it will last
– Easy to setup and use
– Fast USB 3.0 speeds
Cons:
– None that I found
