Pros: Great price; easy to use; solid performance.
Cons: Fairly involved installation process.
Verdict: With a great street price, the ADS USB 2.0 Drive Kit is a solid performer for users looking to add storage devices with the ease of USB 2.0.
USB-based storage was plagued with one very big problem: speed. USB 1.1 offered very limited bandwidth for storage devices. With the introduction of USB 2.0, it would be only natural for companies to pump out storage products to take advantage of the very impressive bandwidth increase. While most companies offer full hard drive packages, ADS opted to allow users to expand their own storage devices to USB 2.0 with their USB 2.0 Drive Kit.
Overview of Features & Installation The intended functionality of the ADS USB 2.0 Drive Kit is simple: Allow users an easy way to add any IDE hard drive or CD/DVD drive to their computer via USB 2.0. With that being said, it's important to note that the drive kit is not portable, and ADS openly states so.
Installation is as simple as disassembling the casing, screwing in the storage device, and plugging in the appropriate cables. Once put back together, the power and USB cables are plugged in and then the device can be powered on with the convenient power button on the front. Note: the drive being installed must be set to 'master'.
The software portion of the installation is simply installing a software driver provided on the CD. Once that's installed, the drive kit will activate and automatically install any storage device plugged in.
As far as looks go, the USB 2.0 Drive Kit is quite simply a big blue box. There's nothing extraordinary or outstanding about the look; it's clean and simple, although the USB Hi-Speed logo adorned on the top of the device looks quite cool. Size-wise, the kit is 7.5" wide, 10" long and 2.5" high. As said before, it's not a portable device, and it shows.
Performance On the performance side of things, it would seem all USB 2.0 storage devices follow a common suit, with a decent, but not so impressive average burst speed of 17mb/s and an average read of 15mb/s. Testing was done with an IBM Deskstar 75GXP 7200 RPM 46GB drive, and an ADS USB 2.0 PCI card with Microsoft USB 2.0 driver. While the numbers say the drive(s) perform slowly, it doesn't exactly 'feel' slow, and accessing and installing programs off a 52x CD-ROM doesn't seem any slower than having it installed internally.
It's important to note that the benchmarked speeds coincide with that of most every USB 2.0 storage device on the market and is something that cannot be avoided.
The Bottom Line With a mere street price of $85, the ADS USB 2.0 Drive Kit is a great way to add additional hard drives or CD/DVD drives to your system with the ease of USB 2.0, albeit the unsatisfactory performance and lengthy installation.
-- By Dustin Jones, Consumer Technology Editor
Where to buy ADS USB 2.0 Drive Kit?
User Review(s)
"Excellent value!" I saw the clearance price of $30.00 for this kit at my local Wal-Mart, and I have a spare WD 80GB HDD with 8MB cache.
...so, I thought "Why not?"
Once I learned how to format the HDD while it is inside this kit, the product has worked without any problems.
From eMan, July 12, 2004
"Does not work consistently" Six different calls to Tech support told me six different stories. The newest, which makes no sense, is that you have to use a newly formatted, new HD. Now, there entire ad campaign is designed to appeal to people who have extra old drives around. I was told that any old drive which had any data on it at all was inapporpriate! So save your old Pentium 90s! From DR Bill McCown, May 09, 2004
"Doesn't work!" This product wouldn't install on my machine.
I've installed both the drivers that shipped on the cd-rom, and updated drives from the ads website. I've installed a pcmcia usb 2.0 card, and two different operating systems.
Tech support doesn't return e-mail, and nothing that I try will make this product work!
Waste of money! Just buy an external drive instead!
From Andrew McCutcheon, February 24, 2003
"About Time! USB 2.0 Device like this!!!!!" Quality! Works perfectly.
Did have a 24x usb 2.0 CDRW installed prior to this device, and I had to let this re-install USB 2.0 drivers, (had to skip files not found) but all worked A-okay.
Much, much faster that usb 1.1 and feels just like a hard drive. From solliex, March 15, 2002
"AWSOME!!!" Without question, this is the first time I have ever written a review period. But, this company needs the Kudos they deserve for manufacturing these units. I have never purchased anything as Plug and Play as these devices. DVD - No problem... CDRW 24X - No Problem.... 7200 RPM IBM's - NP. Design, Finish, Fit, Look, >Noise,...... Great!! I have these hooked up to an Adaptec 3300 something and I can't tell they are USB. Burn from one to the other - Full buffer all the time. Get that PC out of here..... The only thing left on the desk is two drives. Turn them on when you need them, peace and quite the rest of the time. Way to go ADS, keep up the great work. Rant - OVER!! DB From DrummeBoy-CwD, March 05, 2002
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. USB 2.0 Drive Kit Specs
Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, MacOS 9.1, MacOS X
Compatible drive type
3.5" ATA drives, optical drives
Power source
Self-powered
Warranty
One year
Extras Turn on and off this self-powered device automatically with your PC.
Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
