Trans International on Thursday introduced miniXpress, a new external hard disk drive enclosure that features a Serial ATA (SATA) interface. Prices begin at $99 for the basic enclosure. Trans will begin shipping the new drive enclosure on July 10, 2006.
The miniXpress features four interfaces — two FireWire 800 ports, a FireWire 400 port, and USB 2.0. Using the Oxford Semiconductor 924DSB chipset, the drive enclosure is designed to support a 9.5mm SATA drive mechanism, such as you’d find inside a laptop like a MacBook or MacBook Pro (raw SATA laptop drive mechanisms are also available from many vendors online).
The miniXpress measures 5.79 x 2.76 x 0.83 inches and weighs 5 ounces. It ships with cables, power adapter, backup and disk utility software.
Trans also sells the drive pre-configured with a 120GB 5400RPM drive for $269 or a 100GB 7200RPM drive for $279.