Vizo Luxon Review

The Vizo Luxon is next in my trilogy of Vizo reviews. The Luxon is a external hard drive enclosure for SATA and IDE drives. I have always liked the idea of having a portable hard drive enclosure, and this is in my opinion, one of the best ones on the market.

For those of you who are wondering, Vizo is a relatively new company, based in Taiwan, that makes various pieces of hardware for computer enthusiasts.

In the Box

The box is a rather sturdy feeling cardboard box, with a large picture of the Luxon on the front of it. Opening it was quite simple, as no knife or anything sharp was needed to open it.

The parts inside are all neatly arranged, and all placed so that they can't scratch each other up. This is good thinking on Vizo's part, since a lot of times the parts for things are just tossed in the box.

Included in the box is the Luxon, a SATA PCI bracket, a SATA cable, a USB cable, an AC adapter, a screwdriver, a manual and a couple miscellaneous cables.

I was pleasantly surprised that they included the USB 2.0 cable, and a screwdriver for the proprietary screws. Most of the time those things aren't included with computer hardware.

The manual is not translated that well, but it is still understandable.

Testing the Luxon

The Luxon is all black, with silver writing and accents. The overall visual effect is quite aesthetically pleasing, and it matches my X-Blade case nicely.

On the back of the Luxon, there is a DC jack, a power switch, a USB type B port, and a SATA port.

Opening the Luxon so that you can install a drive involves using the included screwdriver to unscrew the torx screws holding the side on. I prefer drives using the Phelps head screws, instead of torx screws, but at least Vizo included a screwdriver for them, so you wouldn't have to find a proper size torx screwdriver.

Once you get the unit open, you can install in the drive, using the included cables, and screw it in. I would recommend attaching the cables first, since they are difficult to attach after the drive is installed. Remember to set the jumper to either SATA or IDE. Also, the drive itself must be set to master. You can then screw it back together, and attach it to the computer.

The Luxon lets you attach itself to the computer in two ways, USB 2.0 or SATA. Installing via SATA will theoretically give you the same speed as in internal hard drive. They include a bracket so that you can transfer a SATA port from your motherboard to a PCI slot. You could also attach it to something like the Masterpanel. Right now, I am running it as USB 2, since I don't have to power off my system to remove or install it.

In case you are worrying about cooling, there is no active cooling. Rather, the Luxon seems to act as a large heatsink, drawing the heat away from the drive, and dissipating it. I ran it for several hours, running a format, and the casing got warm, but not hot, so it appears to be safe. It would be nice if the next version came with active cooling.

I didn't notice much of a difference in speed between running my test hard drive in it and running my test hard drive off of IDE.