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 LAN series is available in 3 different colors:


Features:

• Interface cables for LAN RJ45 and USB 2.0
• Supports any 3.5" PATA HDD up to 400GB
• Hi-speed transfer
• No TCP/IP settings required
• Data can be secured with software key access
• Multiple unit aggregation up to 8-LAN disks
• RAID-0 and RAID-1 for backup
• Hot swappable on USB and network
• Sleek aluminum body enhances heat dissipation
• Blue LED power and access indicator
• OS Support Win 98SE/ME/2000/XP, Mac OS 8.6 and above

Akasa was kind enough to ship us the black and blue variants.

Package & Contents

The front of the package clearly shows the Akasa Integral! enclosure. The back lists all the features in five different languages on a black background.


Inside the colored box, you will find a plain white card board box with all the contents. There is the enclosure in the color depicted on the package, a very thick manual, a CD and flyer and the cables for all the possible ways of connecting the unit.


The afore mentioned manual, flyer and CD. The flyer notes the connection for the LED, in case you disconnect it. The manual covers the installation of the device in all the needed languages with a lot of pictures, while the CD includes the software to run the device with the Ethernet port. Overall a very complete support package.


The power supply is inside a little cardboard box. It is a universal 100-240V power supply which supplies 2A to the hard drive enclosure. There is a crooked Akasa sticker on there. Beneath the sticker the name "CS Power Supply" appears.

A Closer Look & Installation