Features
256 bit AES Hardware encryption is one of most important features of Zalman ZM-VE400. Not many devices provide this option and it’s helpful if you are moving with drive a lot, take it to the business meetings or are simply worried about loosing it in a public place. If the drive is encrypted it’s very hard to get access to the stored data.
Zalman created a very simple way to encrypt data using the ZM-VE400 drive case. All you have to do is to pick Menu on the touch pad, next move to Encryption / Set Encryption tabs and choose password.
Virtual Drive feature is something that I could call unique in this class of devices. Using menu is possible to change case’s mode to HDD, optical drive or even FDD. It comes in handy if you wish your PC to see it as any of these other devices.
SMART and drive’s info. Next feature worth to mention is info about your drive’s health as it can read SMART – Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology.
We can check our drive’s health and temperature.
As we see below, our testing drive is in good condition.
Performance
To measure performance I will use already standard set of benchmarks, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD and ATTO. I used a Crucial M4 64GB SATA3 SSD with the latest firmware for testing.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Transfers are generally good for USB 3.0 device. Read transfer is clearly limited at about 208 MB/s. Could be better as the testing drive has a maximum read bandwidth above 500 MB/s but as I already said it’s not bad result for USB 3.0.
Crystal Disk Mark
CDM looks about the same as ATTO so maximum transfers are limited to about 206 MB/s while other transfers are pretty good.
AS SSD Benchmark
There is also no surprise in AS SSD. Similar to other benchmarks read transfer is up to 200 MB/s while other transfers are not much worse than using SATA connector.
