Edge10 DAS200 review

Edge10’s DAS200 is a hard disk enclosure that can take up to two hard disks.

It can be configured as either a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array and has both eSATA and USB ports, just like Verbatim’s 2-Disk RAID 2TB. Unlike Verbatim’s product, the DAS200 comes without any disks fitted. The front flap opens to let you slide your drives in and out. However, you also have to slide off the rear cover to secure, or unsecure, them. It sounds a bit fiddly, but we installed our test disks quickly and easily.

When configured as RAID 0 and connected over USB, its speeds were fairly typical. When configured as RAID 1, though, it was sluggish when reading small files. It was remarkably fast when connected over eSATA and configured as RAID 0, especially when copying large files. We expected RAID 1 to be slower, but its speed of 30MB/s copying small files was disappointing and more in line with what we’d expect from a FireWire disk.

The DAS200 does little to muffle the noise of your disks and is louder than many enclosures. It’s inexpensive for a RAID-capable enclosure, but it’s not ideal if you want something quiet or need the best possible performance.