250GB external SATA drive does the business

THERE IS NEVER enough storage, that's a fact of the computing world. And when it comes to adding more storage to your PC, chances are there isn't room to add more drives, or at some point, there won't be.

The choice for external storage has been until not too long ago restricted to expensive SCSI, or cheap but slower USB -oh, I almost forgot Firewire enclosures, anyone remembers Firewire?. Serial-ATA changed the landscape allowing the user to experience the full speed of the drive, without USB-to-IDE or Firewire bridge chips and their associated performance bottlenecks.

While looking for the unit with a decent gigabytes-per-buck ratio for my ever growing data storage needs and, after deciding I wanted to try the new breed of SATA external drives, I came across the Acomdata E5 series, particularly the 250SE5-PCI model.

Sporting 250 gigabytes of storage at a reasonable SATA-150 speed and a aluminium enclosure for quiet, "fan-less" operation, this drive bundle also includes a PCI controller for your desktop PC and a 100-240v multi-voltage power brick. Several drives can be stacked when used horizontally, or if you lack desktop space, the unit can be user vertically as well, as the drive comes with rubber feet and a detachable stand for vertical use.

The 250 GB, external Serial-ATA "E5"

What makes this drive special?, well, consider that CompUSA is selling a bare 250 GB SATA-150 drive at around $159 at time of this writing, so for 7 bucks more, this Acomdata offer gives you a drive with the same capacity but factory mounted in an external aluminium enclosure, all required cables, and with a PCI controller with external sata ports for your desktop PC, to boot. In the event that you want to add external Serial-ATA ports to a notebook, you need an adapter like this one.

I couldn't avoid noticing that they did some things right -and the lack of which is one of my main gripes with most of today's external peripherals-: they did include a power on/off switch!. Finally, it should be noted that with a pair of identical units hooked to the same PC, you can even do RAID mirroring. A similar drive of equal capacity and interface from LaCie starts at $199 USD according to Google's price search engine, Froogle.

Expect to see my review of this drive soon here on the INQ. In the meantime, you can find the manufacturer's specs here, and the deal currently at $166 greenbacks with free shipping within the continental U.S. on Amazon.com over there. Remember my motto, as a cheapskate: GIWYC! - Grab it while you can! µ