IN modern world There are a lot of stereotypes... for example, that Japanese cars are better than South Korean ones, or that money is best kept in Swiss banks. Sometimes it is interesting to see how much the existing stereotypes actually justify themselves. Electronics produced by South Korean companies such as LG or Samsung have always been considered a good compromise between product quality and cost. The hero of our today's testing is an external 2.5" enclosure for hard drives, Zalman ZM-VE200, also made by a South Korean manufacturer. Zalman actually has a good reputation among manufacturers of cooling systems for computers. But HDD enclosures are not cooling systems. Let's see how The Zalman company is doing well in the “HDD pockets” market.

The factory packaging turned out to be relatively small, as was the product itself. On its front side there is an image of a black HDD pocket, on the sides of which two silver devices are placed in the background. Apparently, the manufacturer has set itself the goal of presenting external HDD boxing to the buyer at a glance, and in the same way help him decide on the more desirable color of the product. The packaging is well balanced and not overloaded with secondary information; only the basic names and designations of the external HDD pocket ZM-VE200. Despite the laconicism of the packaging, one inscription still makes you pleasantly surprised: “External HDD Case + Virtual Drive.” Wait a minute, is the virtual disk included? This is great, but let's talk about everything in order.

Let's first take a brief look at the main features and technical characteristics external pocket for Zalman ZM-VE200 hard drives, which can be found both on the back of the package and on the manufacturer’s official website.

Key features of Zalman ZM-VE200:

Aluminium case

Pre-installed software for mounting CD/DVD images from ISO files: no additional software is required to mount any ISO image.

Built-in screen showing status information hard drive

Protective case included

The ability to mount ISO images, a built-in screen on which information is displayed - yes, it looks like we have here a case with its own operating system, no less!

Technical characteristics of Zalman ZM-VE200:

Dimensions (LxWxH): 135.3x78.6x13.1 mm

Weight: 98.5 g

Material: aluminum, acrylic, polycarbonate

Type: 2.5" SATA HDD

Interfaces: USB 2.0 (compatible with USB 1.1), eSATA Direct HDD Access

Data transfer rate: USB up to 480 Mbit/s, eSATA up to 3 Gbit/s

Spindle speed: 5400 or 7200 rpm

Nutrition: USB

Color: black, silver

The factory packaging opens from the top, after which you can take out another additional cardboard package (gray, without beautiful pictures), in which, in addition to the HDD pocket itself, a protective case, a short user manual, and a screwdriver with bolts are neatly packed. It's nice to note that USB and eSATA cables also come standard. Obviously, the device comes without a hard drive. The protective case is a very nice bonus that protects appearance HDD case, especially considering that the ZM-VE200 can be located in it while it is connected to the computer, without fear of overheating.

As mentioned above, the outer case for the hard drive can be either black or silver. Came to us on USB testing the pocket is painted silver, and in my opinion, it is more attractive than black, since it contrasts more with general view products.

Connecting and using the Zalman ZM-VE200 will not cause any trouble even for you to the average user PC. On the right, on the upper side of the HDD case is located USB port, write-protect function switch, hard drive activity LED, factory firmware recovery button, and eSATA port. Unlike other 2.5" and 3.5" devices, this HDD box is powered only by a USB or eSATA cable, which explains the absence of a special power connector. This fact is both a plus and a minus at the same time. The fact is that not all today's eSATA ports support the function of powering the devices connected to them, so it would be nice to still leave a special connector for powering the hard drive if necessary, or at least emphasize the fact of incompatibility with the eSATA standard.

Installing a hard drive in the Zalman ZM-VE200 we tested today turned out to be even easier than I could have imagined. All you need to do to install your hard drive inside the pocket is to connect the HDD itself to a special controller via the appropriate connectors, and then insert the HDD along with the connected controller inside the pocket (HDD first, the controller remains at the top). Once you have connected and inserted the hard drive inside, all that remains is to securely fasten it inside using a screwdriver and two bolts, which the South Korean manufacturer thoughtfully included in the delivery package. During installation, you need to slightly open the rubber band that hides the mounting holes. By the way, after installation, this tape will stick out a little due to the tightened bolts, and this, although small, is still a flaw of the Korean engineers.

After installation is complete, it would be a sin not to test the strength and build quality of the case of our today's test subject. Simply shaking and moving the device convinced me that the engineers had designed the case well and that it was strong and reliable. While most 3.5" devices aren't designed for everyday carry, the ZM-VE200's 2.5" HDD pocket—one of the smallest HDD enclosures I've ever handled—is specifically designed for maximum mobility and portability.

2.5" External box Zalman ZM-VE350 is an affordable and multifunctional solution. The manufacturer took into account all the nuances and created the ideal device. The case is black, it is made of metal and has a pleasant texture, durable construction. There is a liquid crystal display, it will be especially useful when using the model as a virtual drive.
Zalman ZM-VE350 comes with an extended configuration. Along with the device, the owner receives a screwdriver for installing the disk into the box. A convenient and high-quality case, USB cable, and screws are provided.
An important feature will be compatibility with operating systems Windows systems and Mac OS. There will be no connection problems; the model is suitable for all users. The USB 3.0 interface allows you to copy large amounts of information in a short time.
The box has compact dimensions, it can easily fit into any bag and is easy to transport. The user will be able to independently create external hard disk, just select a suitable module and install it in a dedicated compartment.

An external hard drive today has become one of the essential items for everyone whose activities are in one way or another related to PC maintenance. The choice of discs and containers is large - for every color, taste and budget. However, there are solutions that stand out noticeably in the general series, one of them can be called an external container Zalman ZM-VE300 which, in addition to serving as an external drive, can serve as an optical disc drive emulator.

This allows you to kill two birds with one stone, since an external ODD drive and a stack of disks for it are the same essential items for system administrators, service engineers and simply computer enthusiasts. Installation discs with the OS, various service and diagnostic Live-CDs - in the end we get a rather impressive list of disks that you should always have with you, and important disks are also not in one copy. Otherwise, it will be very unpleasant when, at the most crucial moment, a “worn out” disk refuses to be read.

But first things first. At first glance the cost Zalman ZM-VE300 may seem very overpriced, paying about 2000 rubles for an external container without an HDD, even from a renowned manufacturer, is somehow too much; for this money you can easily get a good external drive. But this is only at first glance; as we will see later, the device fully justifies its price.

The container is supplied in a medium-sized cardboard box, on which the manufacturer emphasized the main advantages of the device.

It's obvious that Zalman ZM-VE300 in virtual drive mode, it is significantly ahead of any existing optical drive. Even in USB 2.0 mode, which is the main one, when using this container as boot disk, currently only Windows 8 can be loaded via USB 3.0, and even then not always successfully, since USB 3.0 controllers from different manufacturers have their own characteristics.

To evaluate the performance of the virtual drive as a bootable drive, we compared the startup time of the Ubuntu 13.0 LiveCD by burning it to new disk DVD+R.

Optical drives showed quite expected results: the external drive is the slowest, the internal drive is slightly faster. Zalman ZM-VE300 once again showed a significant lead - loading the image in less than a minute. This is a truly excellent result, which will be appreciated by those who often boot their PC from optical discs.

conclusions

We have before us a truly excellent product that fully justifies its price. Its main advantage is a virtual optical drive, which will allow you to abandon the use of optical discs and external drives. In addition, the virtual drive allows you to work with disk images much faster than any optical drive. All this does Zalman ZM-VE300 an indispensable assistant for administrators, service engineers and simply computer enthusiasts.

External box for 2.5-inch drives with USB 3.0 interface and with virtual optical drive function. An interesting and no less useful gadget from Zalman. An excellent alternative to Chinese “boxes” for 2.5 inch HDDs.

Specifications

Interface: USB 3.0 (compatible with USB 2.0/1.11)

Form factor/drive interface: 2.5″/SATA 1.2

Supported OS: Windows 98.ME, 2000, XP, Vista. 7/Mac OS/Linux

Additionally: text display, Backup button, virtual optical drive function

Dimensions: 135.3×78.6×13.1 mm

Weight: 96g

Advantages and disadvantages of Zalman ZM-VE300 V

Advantages

• Aluminum alloy body
• Compact dimensions
• Hi-Speed ​​USB 3.0 Interface
• Virtual optical drive feature
• Rich equipment

Flaws

• High price

Design and ergonomics

As you have noticed, the device looks very impressive. Its body is made of durable and lightweight aluminum alloy, making the gadget thin (slightly thicker than 1 cm) and ensuring effective heat removal from the drive. At the top is a small text-based LCD display that shows the device's status and settings menu, which is navigated using the three-way joystick on the left side of the device. On top there is a Backup button and a micro-USB 3.0 connector for connecting to a computer.

Gadget functionality

Zalman ZM-VE300 V It is distinguished by extremely high functionality for devices of this kind. The most interesting thing is that to use its capabilities in practice, you do not need to install special drivers or utilities on your computer (besides the proprietary backup utility). You can control the device using your own menu: change the brightness of the screen and the idle time of the drive to go into sleep mode, analyze the current parameters (temperature, disk condition - S.M.A.R.T., supply voltage, etc.), as well as perform reconnection and safe shutdown, and even activate write protection.

Virtual optical drive emulation

The “chip” of the device is virtual optical drive emulation. By activating this mode“ODD Mode” in the corresponding section of the “Mode Select” menu, the device is recognized by the computer not as an external hard drive (HDD Mode), but as an optical drive. The usual ISO files (images) are used as optical discs, which must be placed in a folder called “iso”. If you place several files with images in it, you can quickly switch between them using the screen and joystick without disconnecting the external box from the PC. And of course, it is possible to boot your computer from a virtual optical disk by selecting its image. The main thing is that the BIOS supports booting from a USB optical drive. Besides everything else, boxing from Zalman can simultaneously work both as an external HDD and as an optical drive - Dual Mode. Accordingly, the computer sees it as two separate devices.

Those wishing to use this external box for SSD drive with SATA 3 will be disappointed with performance and an unjustified purchase of this type hard drive. SATA 2 media works great.

Equipment

Fans of the included accessories will also like the device. They will find there a USB 3.0 cable, a high-quality case to protect against scratches, screws for securing the drive inside the box and a small screwdriver. There is also a disk with a proprietary backup utility and a user manual on English language.

Quickly became one of the most needed and useful devices. The owners of such boxes will understand me; they get used to good things quickly.

Soon after the purchase, bootable flash drives were almost a thing of the past, joining the previously retired BootCD and the almost forgotten floppy disks. It seemed that the question the best device for OS installations and other actions related to booting from an external drive will now not occur for a long time. But less than a year has passed since he appeared ZM-VE300 from the same manufacturer. Although I have never come across computers with USB 3.0 ports before ( I know that this is not the first year they have been produced), I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to evaluate the VE300.

First look

The appearance and equipment are almost the same as its predecessor. Myself aluminium case identical, only on the upper part, connected to the disk, instead of the write-protect switch there is a Backup button, and instead of the Mini USB_B and eSATA sockets there is one USB 3.0 Micro_B.

Included with the ZM-VE300 is a USB 3.0 A - USB 3.0 Micro_B cable, a disk with software, brief instructions in English and "micro screwdriver with micro bolts".

The screen is the same as on the ZM-VE200, but instead of constantly displaying the disk temperature, it shows the connection mode.

The temperature can be viewed by selecting view SMART parameters in the menu (there is only the temperature and the status of the drive, “good” in my case). In general, the menu is more extensive than it was before.

Speed

First of all, of course, we were interested in the write/read speeds, for comparison with the previous model.

The following system was assembled for testing:

The disk was one third full of various files, tests were performed using the ATTO Disk Benchmark utility.

ZM-VE300 connected via USB 2.0 port and through USB 3.0.

ZM-VE200 connected via USB 2.0 port and through eSATA.

Somewhat unexpected was the difference in data exchange speed with VE300 and VE200 connected to the same USB port 2.0, with the same hard drive.

The difference between USB 3.0 and eSATA seems to be insignificant, but here we must not forget about some things:

* eSATA on VE200 - without power, so it requires that it be connected and USB cable. The most annoying thing is that you cannot boot your computer from a virtual image via eSATA, it is only for copying files.

* USB 3.0 requires drivers at boot, which are not present in every liveCD image. Even if the image itself is loaded, there will be no access to the disk itself in Zalmane. Therefore, these drivers have to be either integrated into the image in advance, or loaded along the way.

With drivers included, downloading/installing/operating via USB 3.0 is very fast. It feels as if you are working with the internal drive of the computer and not with an external one via USB. Even large wim images are loaded in a matter of seconds. Windows installation 8 happens in a few minutes ( I didn’t time it but it seems no more than ten). Working with Knoppix DVD is an absolute pleasure.

Virtual disks and software

The utility is included with the product and can be downloaded from the official Zalman website / I did so due to the lack of a disk drive. From there you can download the manual in .pdf format and the latest firmware that is flashed, in contrast to slipping an iso file into the VE200, directly from Windows execution exe file.

The main BackupUtility window is launched from the tray or by pressing a button on the case.

To work with the Backup Utility program, it must be installed in Windows computer to which the VE300 will connect. The Backup button on the device calls up this particular program. And that means the program must be launched with administrator rights. If in the Backup settings you specify the contents of which folder of the host OS where to backup on Zalman, and set Automatic backup to ON, then the copying should occur without a window appearing.

Actually, I’m a little disappointed by the need to pre-install the utility on the host OS. I wanted to secretly save a bank client from the chief accountant, bummer :).

The most noteworthy button, in my opinion, is Virtual HDD. In the window it opens, you can create images of floppy disks (*.ima), flash drives (*.rmd) and partitions or completely hard drives(*.dsk). These virtual disks can then be mounted by Zalman by selecting them in the "_ISO" folder.

You can work with mounted virtual disks in the same way as with regular ones, that is, write files to them, split them into partitions, format them in any file systems, make them bootable... I experimented in different ways using Paragon Partition Manager.

You can boot your computer from bootable images by selecting BIOS Setup or Boot menu corresponding device. Those. USB-FDD for *.ima, USB-ZIP for *.rmd or USB-HDD for *.dsk. Although there may be collisions here.

Interestingly, as soon as any non-CD/DVD/Bluray disc image is mounted, the physical disk Zalman, becomes read-only.

On the screenshot:

*Disc 1 (I)- "virtual HDD partition", file.dsk

*Disk 2 (H)- "virtual flash drive", file.rmd

*Disc 3 (Q)- "main disk" Zalman

*CD-ROM 0 (F)- "virtual BD-ROM", file.iso

Total

After working with the ZM-VE300 for several days, I hurried to return it to the owner. I've had enough. It's too addictive, and the VE200 hasn't had enough yet. And USB 3.0 is rarely seen today. In a word, I don’t need it. The desire is now there :) but so far conquerable. I think the high price is justified, let Zalman make money while competitors click their beaks, it’s his right.