Conclusion
The NexStar HX2R is a great enclosure. It is a solid product with is aluminum housing along with the 80 mm top fan to suck the air out to keep the drives cool. Another really cool thing about the NexStar HX2R is that is it completely easy to set up and get going. It is something that novice users looking to venture into custom external storage can set up to enthusiast users looking to expand their storage to 8TB. But the only issue that I ran into while setting up the NexStar HX2R is that the top drive bracket when trying to pull it out is pretty tough and requires a little bit of brute strength to unlock. After that all you really had to do was toss in 2 drives and then either use the jumpers to configure it JBOD or RAID 0/1. Before you toss the drives in you need make sure to install the drives into the brackets, which is the only bad thing I have noticed about the unit itself.
While testing out the HX2R there were some pretty good write and read speeds. Now if you were able to toss in some solid state drives you would see improved performance. One of the other things that is nice about the HX2R is that it doesn’t take too much space and isn’t loud. Another pretty neat thing about the NexStar HX2R is that there is nothing else really that looks close to this. I personally highly recommend the NexStar HX2R as a device for everyone.
You are currently able to find the Vantec NexStar HX2R online at most retailers for around $90, which is a great deal for an enclosure with active cooling, nice design, and great performance
Overall Thinkcomputers gives the Vantec NexStar HX2R Hard Drive Enclosure a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Aluminum housing
– Active cooling with 80 mm fan
– USB 3.0 and eSATA
– Looks nice on your desk
– Bright and active LEDs
Cons:
– Top hard drive bracket is tight to unlock
– Hard drive bracket only uses 1 screw on each side which can make install a little tough