Physical examination
The Magic Bridge itself is rather dainty. It's light, and somewhere between a regular and laptop hard drive in size. Black goes with everything as well... stylish.
Visible in this shot is the SATA connection, which is built into the unit, providing both power and data connections much like any hot-swap enclosure would. To the right is the socket for the 4-pin Molex adapter, along with the DC input socket.
The other sides of the device features an eSATA port, USB port and IDE connector. The IDE connector isn't keyed, but cannot be attached incorrectly because of IDE's pin layout. However, if it was keyed, there'd be less chance of damaging a drive's pins, so it's a shame the key isn't present.
The layout allows two drives to be connected at once without interfering with each other. However, the 2A DC adapter shipped in our version of the Magic Bridge won't power two drives. The 5A version is required for this, unless you have a compatible adapter rated at 12V, 5A that you can use with the Magic Bridge.
Here we have a drive attached to the Magic Bridge. It is completely naked and therefore exposed to whatever might drop onto it or touch it. Care should be taken when using a drive like this, but that goes without saying. Also, make sure the Magic Bridge is turned off (via the little switch on top) when attaching and removing IDE drives. SATA drives may be able to cope with hot-plugging, but IDE drives aren't designed to.
Bundle
With the packaging removed, the box is large enough to fit a single hard drive, attached to the Magic Bridge. This might be a good place to put a drive instead of exposed on a desk, giving it a little bit more protection. A handy box to keep a hold of, then. (Yes, we reviewed a box just then, and better still the review was positive!)
Included in the bundle we've got a power adapter, laptop drive adapter, Molex power adapter, 1m eSATA cable, 1m USB cable and a driver CD. eSATA supports cable runs of up to 2m and USB can deal with 5m, but 1m seems to be enough unless the system chassis is a long way from where you want to place the Magic Bridge.
There's everything you'd need in the bundle, then, save the IDE/SATA devices themselves.
