Introduction

I would like to thank Akasa Europe for providing the review sample.

The Akasa Group of companies was founded in 1997 with offices in Taipei and London. Their management team is experienced in Electronic and Electro-mechanical product development. The core business is based around heatsink design, manufacture and distribution to the PC manufacturing sector. The company also supplies the Distribution channel with PC thermal solutions. Their market leading portfolio of Retail based PC products aimed at the Custom PC market has been supplemented with a successful range of PC peripherals marketed into the mainstream PC channel.

The Akasa integral fusion is available in 2 different colors:


Features

• Auto periodic backup for preset intervals
• 1-touch backup for selected sources
• Suitable for 3.5" hard disk drive IDE PATA
• 4-slot multi format memory card reader: reads most cards
• USB 2.0 hi-speed data transfer
• 2-port USB 2.0 low-power hub (with port protection)
• Internal cooling fan with adjustable speed control
• Plug-and-play hot swappable
• LED HDD power and access indicator
• File synchronization for two or more locations

We received the black variant for testing.

Packaging & Contents

The packaging of the integral fusion has the same layout as all the other Akasa external enclosures. The front shows the enclosure, with a catch phrase as well as a sticker denoting the color inside the packaging. The back lists all the features in detail in multiple languages.


As usual, inside the colorful box, you will find a sturdy white cardboard box. It has specific compartments for all the different items included. The packaging is quite strong and should survive the shipping from your favorite etailer to you.


Besides the enclosure, Akasa has included a color manual in multiple languages as well as an 8 cm CD containing the backup software. An USB cable, plastic stand and power supply is also included. I was rather surprised to see such a small power supply for an external enclosure. It is rated for 2A/24W output. Other enclosures (including the Akasa Integral LAN enclosure we tested here) use an external power brick.

A Closer Look

The Akasa integal fusion is a bit bigger than most other enclosures. The chassis is made out of aluminum which attributes to the enclosure's great build quality. The bottom of the fusion has a fan grill. This is where a 1 cm thick 60 mm fan is placed, blowing out of the case. This keeps the hard drive cool during use.


The front of the fusion has a card reader, which can use all the major card formats. There is also a backup button and three LEDs above the card reader. The LEDs show hard drive access in red, power in blue and card reader access in red. The front has a mirror finish, thus you can see my hand and the camera I use to take pictures. The back has the normal connections for power and USB and a small power switch as well as two USB ports. There is also an air vent to the right of the back of the enclosure. You can also control the fan speed with a dial on the back of the device.


The opened Akasa integral fusion reveals that there is more than meets the eyes. There is a PCB at both ends of the enclosure, while the bottom houses the fan.


The card reader PCB gives us some idea who is behind this functionality. The biggest chip here is the ALCOR AU6368. The data sheet of the chip in PDF can be found here. Its features include:

• Support USB v2.0 specification and USB Device Class Definition for Mass Storage, Bulk-Transport v1.0
• Support CF/MD, SD/MMC, MS/MS PRO/MS ROM/MS Duo AND xD/SMC specification
• Work with default driver from Windows ME, Windows XP, and Mac OS X.
• Windows 98, Windows 2000 are supported by vendor AP (The AP included both Win 98 and 2000 driver) from Alcor.
• Ping-pong FIFO implementation for concurrent bus operation
• Support multiple sectors transfer optimize performance
• Support slot-to-slot read/write operation.
• Support auto-detecting slot with card inserted on Win 2000 without driver.
• Support LED for bus activity indication.

The PCB in the back of the enclosure consists of two parts. One for the two USB ports and one for the USB to IDE interface. There are two chips which do all the work.

USB Low Power Hub controller - GL850A
The chip is manufactured by Genesys Logic. The datasheet in PDF format can be found here. It has the following features:

• Compliant to USB specification Revision 2.0
  - 4 downstream ports
  - Upstream port supports both high-speed (HS) and full-speed (FS) traffic
  - Downstream ports support HS, FS, and low-speed (LS) traffic
  - 1 control pipe (endpoint 0, 64-byte data payload) and 1 interrupt pipe (endpoint 1, 1-byte data payload)
  - Backward compatible to USB specification Revision 1.1
• Single Transaction Translator (STT)
  - Single TT shares the same TT control logics for all downstream port devices. This is the most cost
  effective solution for TT. Multiple TT provides individual TT control logics for each downstream port.
  This is a performance better choice for USB 2.0 hub. Please refer to GL852 data sheet for more
  detailed information.
• Each downstream port supports two-color status indicator, with automatic and manual modes compliant to USB specification Revision 2.0
• Automatic switching between self-powered and bus-powered modes

So the chip actually supports up to 4 USB ports, but Akasa chose to use only two of them.

USB 2.0 IDE device controller - ITE IT8903BE
This chip is made by ITE Tech. Inc. The data sheet can be found here in PDF format. It includes the following features:

• USB 2.0
  - Completes USB specifications 2.0 compatibility
• IDE Controller - Compatible with the ATA/ATAPI-6 specifications.
  -Supports ANSI ATA proposal PIO Modes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 & DMA Modes 0, 1, 2 as well as Ultra DMA Modes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
  -Supports bus mastering for IDE DMA/Ultra DMA transfer
  -Supports various ATA/ATAPI devices such like hard drives, CD-ROM/R/RW as well as DVD-ROM/R/RW
  -Complies with bootable BIOS
• External flash interface
  -Supports firmware upgrade via USB bus