Model: HornetTek Goliath USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure
Manufacturer: HornetTek
Provided By: HornetTek

If you've gone shopping for an external drive enclosure, it's very likely that you've come across the name HornetTek. Founded more than a decade ago, the company specializes in storage and multimedia external enclosure solutions. By forming a standard yet efficient product development procedure, HornetTek's engineering team is able to deliver state-of-the-art designs at a competitive price.

HornetTek currently offers a variety of enclosures for 2.5 and 3.5-inch hard drives. One of the latest additions to their product line is the Goliath. This new enclosure is made out of rigid aluminum and supports 3.5-inch SATA hard drives up to 2TB. The Goliath also sports a built in 80mm fan and extra ventilation to keep hard drives cool. Last but not least, it features a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface capable of delivering transfer rates up to 5 Gb/s.

HornetTek Goliath USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure

Models HT-318-U3-BLK (Black) and HT-318-U3-RED (Red)
Interface USB 3.0
HDD Support 3.5" SATA I/II/III HDD
HDD Capacity Supports up to 2TB
Fan 80mm
File Transfer USB 3.0 at 5 Gb/s max
USB 2.0 at 480 Mb/s max
Material Front and side aluminum with back ABS panel
OS Support Supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Linux 2.4.1.0 or above and Macintosh OS 8.6 or higher
   

The Goliath comes in a stylish black box. The front, back and sides of the box show the enclosure from various angles and lists many of its features. Inside, you'll find the enclosure as well as a small box of accessories. Along with an AC power adater, HornetTek has included a USB 3.0 cable, user's manual and a set of foam pads.


With a name like Goliath, it shouldn't be too surprising that HornetTek's new enclosure is a bit on the large side. The enclosure measures about 180 mm x 140mm x 50mm and weighs in at 580g without a hard drive installed. While the back of the Goliath is made of ABS plastic, the sides are constructed of brushed aluminum. This not only looks great, it helps keep the drive inside cool.

It's hard to see in the picture above, but there is a strip of clear plastic running down the front of the Goliath. Behind this strip there is a bright, blue LED that lights up with the unit is powered on. It also flashes to show disk activity. 

The rear of the Goliath is pretty straight forward. Below the main power switch, there is a small switch to turn the fan on and off, a USB 3.0 port and the enclosure's DC power connection.

Aside from its USB 3.0 interface, the Goliath's most notable feature is its built-in cooling fan. Located on one of the side panels, this 80mm fan pulls air into the enclosure, which then flows around the hard drive and out through the vents on top. This fan spins slow enough where noise really isn't an issue. Even with my ear next to the enclosure, I had a hard time hearing it over the background noise in my office.

When I took the side panel off and took a closer look at the fan, I noticed that it did not blow directly onto the hard drive. The enclosure's circuit board blocks about 1/3 of the fan. There's also a metal tray between the fan and the drive. However, there are plenty of holes in it and judging by the amount of air coming out the top of the enclosure, airflow is not a problem.


Installing a hard drive in the Goliath is very easy. To begin, remove the two screws on the side without the fan. Once the screws are removed, the aluminum cover should slide right off, exposing the enclosure's internals.

The next step is to flip up the protective cover. Once this is out of the way, you'll have enough room to insert a 3.5" hard drive into the enclosure. The easiest way to do this is to line up the SATA connectors and slide the drive into place. The foam pads on either side of the drive hold onto it pretty well so you may need to use some muscle.

If you're using a thinner hard drive, you may want to use the thicker foam pads that HornetTek has included with the enclosure. If not, you can simply flip down the protective cover and screw the aluminum cover back into place. Once this is done, you can go ahead and connect the USB 3.0 cable, plug in the power cable, and turn the enclosure on. If everything goes as planned, your computer should automatically detect the Goliath and install any drivers it may need.


Performance:

The test system used in this review was an HP dc7900. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz CPU, 2GB of DDR2 800MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250310AS 250GB SATA hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX570 256MB PCIe graphics card, Intel 82567LM-3 gigabit network card and Patriot SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe host card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.

To test the performance of the HornetTek Golaith, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46 and HD Tune Pro 4.50. I used a Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 7K1000.B hard drive and ran the tests with the enclosure plugged into a USB 3.0 port and then again using USB 2.0.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.


HornetTek Goliath - USB 3.0

HornetTek Goliath - USB 2.0

The Goliath performed very well when connected to the computer's USB 3.0 port. In our tests, the enclosure reached speeds as high as 115 MB/s when reading and 104 MB/s when writing.

HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:

Using HD Tach, we can benchmark a drive's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.

When connected to the computer's USB 3.0 port, the Goliath had average read and write speeds of  93.2 MB/s and 94.3 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst speed of 135.5 MB/s. The enclosure wasn't nearly as fast when using USB 2.0 though. Compared to what we saw with USB 3.0, the Goliath's read and write speeds dropped by two-thirds.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the Goliath's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.


HornetTek Goliath - USB 3.0

HornetTek Goliath - USB 2.0

When tested with ATTO, the Goliath's USB 3.0 read speeds topped out at about 114 MB/s and its write speeds at 97 MB/s.

Final Thoughts:

The Goliath is a worthy addition to HornetTek's line of hard drive enclosures. Designed with cooling in mind, this aluminum enclosure features a built-in 80mm fan which blows cool air through the extra ventilation surrounding the hard drive. While this does make the Goliath a bit larger than other single drive enclosures, this system does a great job of keeping hard drives cool. HornetTek's new enclosure also offers some impressive performance. With its USB 3.0 interface, the Goliath shouldn't have any problems keeping up with the industry's fastest SATA hard drives.

The HornetTek Goliath is available now in your choice of black or red and can be purchased from online stores like Amazon, Micro Center, and Buy.com for less than $50.

Highs:

  • Well constructed
  • Built-in cooling fan
  • Great USB 3.0 performance
  • Cooling fan can be turned on or off
  • Compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux
  • Reasonably priced

Lows:

  • Larger than other single drive enclosures
  • Doesn't support hard drives over 2TB in size