Macally G-S350SUAB User Manual

IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B FireWire/Hi-Speed USB2.0/eSATA

3.5” Serial ATA Hard Drive Enclosure

G-S350SUAB

User's Manual

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Introducing IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B FireWire/Hi-Speed
USB2.0/eSATA

3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure - G-S350SUAB

Thank you for choosing the G-S350SUAB aluminum
IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B FireWire/
Hi-Speed USB2.0/eSATA 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure. This Aluminum
enclosure supports 3.5” SATA Hard drive up to 1TB. It is simple to install
and comes with all the parts you need to create an external hard drive.

Based on IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B FireWire/SATA II, SATA I, USB2.0 and
USB1.1
specifications the transfer rates are up to:
SATA II - 3.0Gb/s
SATA I - 1.5Gb/s
1394A - 400Mb/s
1394B - 800Mb/s
USB2.0 - 480Mb/s
USB1.1 - 12Mb/s
G-S350SUAB can support the speed specification listed above, however
its
transfer rates are possible to be lower, and will vary depending upon the
Operating System, type of SATA, 1394A,1394B and USB host controller,
SATA Hard Drive and computer hardware.

About This Guide

Before you begin using the G-S350SUAB, be sure to read this manual in
its entirety.
This guide contains:

Introducing IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B FireWire/Hi-Speed

USB2.0/eSATA

3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure
Hardware Installation
Software Installation

Hard Drive Partition and Format in PC Windows 2000/XP/Vista

! FAQ

System Requirements

MacOS 9.2 and MacOS X 10.1 to 10.5 for USB and Firewire connection

! MacOS X 10.2 to 10.5 for SATA connection

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Package Contents

The G-S350SUAB-Aluminum IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B FireWire/Hi-Speed
USB2.0 /eSATA 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure package includes the
following software and documentation:

G-S350SUAB enclosure
9 pin-9 pin1394B FireWire Cable
USB2.0 cable
Software CD containing the drivers and manual
AC/DC Adapter

eSATA cable(optional)

Safety Precautions

ON INSTALLATION

1. To reduce the risk of fire or electric shock, do not expose this
product to rain, water or moisture.

2. Do not place any containers with liquids (drinking glass, flower
vase, etc.) or containers with small metal parts (paper clips, etc.)
on top of the unit.

3. According to standard industry practice, surge protection is
recommended for all telecommunications devices. Surge suppressors
and/or line conditioning should be used on the input power supply.

ON OPERATION

Do not move the chassis during operation. Doing so may cause a

malfunction.

Protect the unit from shocks and vibrations.
Do not use the subsystem in areas exposed to oily smoke or

steam,such as a kitchen or close to a humidifier.

Do not use the subsystem in locations exposed to rain or splashes of

water, such as outdoors, in a bathroom, or close to a window.

Do not use the subsystem on an unstable or slanted surface without

proper support.

Do not expose the unit to direct sunlight or hot air where the
temperature could exceed 45ºC, or very cold locations where the
temperature is below 0ºC.

Keep the power cord away from hot appliances.

Do not touch the power cord with wet hands.

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ON TRANSPORTATION

Save the packing materials as you may need to repack and transport the
unit at a later date.
Always remove the disc before moving the unit.

ON POWER SOURCES

When you are not using the unit for a long time, disconnect the power
cord from the unit.
To unplug the AC power adapter from the wall outlet, grasp the adapter
itself. Do not pull the cord.

Warning

If any of the following conditions occur, immediately disconnect the
power cord from the wall outlet and contact your dealer or an authorized
service station. Continuing to use the computer involves the risk of fire
and electric shock.

Smoke or unusual smell is coming from the subsystem.
Water has entered the unit, or the unit has become wet.
A foreign object has entered the unit.
The unit has been dropped or the front panel or frame has been

damaged.

The power cable is damaged, causing wire breakage or exposed

leads.

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Hardware Basic

Precaution:

Please make sure your hand is dry and remove static from your body by
touching metal parts of your computer chassis.

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1 — Back Panel 2 — 2 -6mm Screws 3 --- Enclosure Sleeve

4 — Base Tray bridge 5 — 6 -5mm Screws 6 — 8 -4mm Screws

7 — Front Panel 8 — Base Tray 9 — Power on/off but ton

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Hardware Installation

Note: The diagrams below uses the G-S350U Enclosure as an example.

1. Unscrew to loosen the Enclosure Back Panel. Remove the Back Panel.

2. Use your fingers to push the Base Tray out.

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3. Pull the Enclosure Sleeve out from the Base Tray and place it aside.

4. Align the black Power/SATA connector on the hard drive to the black
female SATA connector on the Base plate bridge, and push the drive into
the connector completely.

5. Secure the HDD to the Base Tray with 2 hard drive screws.

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Front Sleeve

6. Push the Base Tray into the Enclosure Sleeve.

7. Secure the Base Tray and Enclosure Sleeve with two 6mm screws.

8. Plug the AC/DC adapter into the Enclosure, and connect the unit to your
computer using a USB cable ,Firewire cable or eSATA cable. Then press
the Power Button to turn it on.

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It is important to note that different SATA host adapters handle the power
sequence in different way. Some support all five power sequence modes,
the other can only support Hot Boot. G-S350SUAB supports all five
power sequence modes. To find out what your SATA host adapter is
capable of, please contact the manufacturer of SATA host adapter, or
simply try all power sequence mode yourself.
Before disconnecting the SATA drive cable from the computer, we
recommend you to shut down the computer first, because current system
driver and SATA host specification do not make SATA hard drive 100%
removable like USB or Firewire hard drive.

FireWire and USB Connection for MacOS 9.2 and MacOS X

When the Enclosure is connected to the computer, MacOS X will
recognize it automatically, initialize it (if the drive is not initialized) and
mount the drive to desktop. All five power sequence modes are supported
in Firewire or USB connection.
Note: MacOS X provides a Disk Utility to create multiple volumes, which
is located in Utilities folder inside Applications folder.

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HARD DRIVE PARTITION and FORMAT PROCEDURES in
PC WINDOWS 2000/XP/Vista

If you can see a new entry under Disk drives of Device Manager, you are
ready to partition and format the drive.

1. Open Control panel, “Administrative Tools” and “Computer
management”.

Step 2

2. Click on “Disk Management”.

Step 3

3. “Write Signature and Upgrade Disk Wizard” windows will show up and
click “Next”.

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4. Write a signature to the new drive, click “Next”.

5. Click “Finish” to close the wizard.

Step 4

Step 5

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6. Select the new “Unallocated” disk, and then right click to choose
“Create partition”.

Step 7

7. Follow the onscreen instruction to partition and fully format the drive.

*note: If it assigns a new hard drive letter but format dose not run automatically,
please exit “Computer Management”, and find the new drive letter in My

computer to format it completely.

Step 6

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q1, What are SATA, SATA I, SATA II, eSATA any way? How are they
related to G-S350SUAB enclosure?

A1: SATA stands for Serial ATA, in contrast to old Parallel ATA (IDE, EIDE,
ATA and ATAPI) technology. SATA starts with 1.5Gb/s specification, and
evolves to 3.0Gb/s specification, which is commonly referred to as SATA II.
Hence, original SATA 1.5Gb/s is called SATA I to distinguish with SATA II

3.0Gb/s.
Initially SATA was designed as an internal or inside-the-box interface
technology for storage device like HDD. Both SATA I and SATA II hard
drives use plug and receptacle interface with “L” shaped key as shown
below.

This connectors and cable(flat) with “L” shaped key support both SATA

1.5Gb/s and 3.0Gb/s, however the cable length is limited to 1m(around 3.3
feet) maximum. When this manual was written, majority of SATA ports
provided by computers or add-on SATA host adapters are the receptacle
with “L” shaped key.

As shown below, it is more and more common to find a new type of SATA
receptacle in the system or PCI/ExpressCard host card and plug(without
“L” shaped key), called eSATA. eSATA becomes a standard for external
SATA peripherals. Our G-S350SUAB has eSATA port built in. Depending
on the type of SATA port you have in the computer, please get the proper
SATA cable to connect them.

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Q2. How should I disconnect G-S350SUAB safely from the computer?
After I disconnect the SATA enclosure, why does the drive icon still
stay on the desktop of MacOS X?

A2: For Firewire or USB connection in Windows PC, please click “Safely
remove mass storage device - Drive letter” line inside Safely Remove
Hardware icon on the System Tray; In Mac computer, please trash the
external drive icon. Then disconnect G-S350SUAB from the system.

In SATA connection, depending on the SATA host controller(and
sometimes OS) you use, some controllers support hot plug and unplug
function, some don't. You have to find out its capability. To prevent data
corruption, the safest way to disconnect SATA cable or power off G­S350SUAB is to shut down computer first.

SATA drive (or SATA connection) is not treated essentially as removable
device to the most of systems if not all. That is why there is no eject icon
associated to SATA drive in Finder of Mac OS X, and System Tray in
Windows has no Remove Hardware option for SATA drive. Therefore,
when the SATA drive is connected, some system still keeps SATA drive
icon, you just won't be able to use the drive until you connect it back.

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Q3. How is SATA compared to USB and Firewire in speed? What
performance gain can one expect by using SATA connection?

A3: Following chart shows the specification data rate(MBps) and
Overhead among USB, Firewire and SATA.

Next table compares real world benchmark between USB, Firewire and
SATA drives:

Table: Comparison of interface speeds and d ata t ran sfe r
rates external disk drive interfaces

Above data are quoted from www.sata-io.org. The performance of G­S350SUAB in your application might be higher or lower depending upon
the hard drive used, SATA and USB host and computer hardware. In our
test, we have seen over 60MB/s sequential read and write speed in
SATA connection. SATA is the better choice for storage device.

USB2

1394A

SATA

Raw Interface
speed

480Mbps 400Mbps 1500Mbps

Benchmark
comparison
64K read

31.6MB/sec 34.8MB/sec

42.4MB/sec

Benchmark

comp ariso n

64K write

Burst
Transfer
Rate

26.5MB/sec 26.7MB/sec 56.2MB/sec

33.5MB/sec 36.2MB/sec 111.3MB/sec