Nice installation!

Agreed - that (and the current limit on USB ports) is what caused me to check the manual initially. I'm wondering if the drive(s) spins up intermittently when accessed like a laptop drive, or runs continuously.

Agreed - as close to the battery as possible, but I would not recommend actually in the engine compartment, even using the body as a heat sink. While there are certainly electronics under the hood, they are specifically designed for high temperature operation (85 deg. C) which the consumer-grade inverter is not. It's likely designed for 0-55 deg. C operation (or lower), and underhood temps are well beyond that. The inverter fan will also be circulating engine temperature air across the device heat sinks - maybe not a problem at 60 mph, but a real issue sitting at idle. (You'd also have the issue of connecting the 115 VAC and USB cables through the firewall). I would mount it on the cabin side of the firewall and run the DC cables thru a grommet in one of the existing openings in the firewall. On the other hand, if you're lucky enough to have your battery in the trunk where mine is located, then it's a moot point.

Yes, it is included. The issue I was alluding to is that it's necessary to use it if USB or eSATA connected. The OP mentioned that it was in-line powered, and that would be a problem if he had intended to power it from a laptop in the field where no AC was available.

Yep, another good reason to wire it directly to the battery (with an inline fuse if the inverter doesn't have it's own). In terms of the fuse value, divide the power by 14 volts to get the amperage, then divide the amperage by .85 (estimated efficiency of the inverter), add .5 amps for the fan, and then pick the next highest standard value as a good starting point - maybe 30 amps for a 300 watt inverter at full load to give a little margin for start up.

No opinion - just wanted to make sure you were not expecting it to be powered via USB or eSATA. Could make a difference if you were planning on using it in the field with no access to AC power.

Good luck,
Chris

Read the manual carefully regarding the power requirements - it requires the external power supply if USB or eSATA connected. Only the FireWire connection can support bus-powered.

"➁ USB mini Port - Connect one of your computer’s USB ports to the Newer Technology Guardian MAXimus mini using the included cable. Using the USB port requires the external power supply to be used"

I wonder if it has a constantly running fan that was mentioned repeatedly in the reviews for the other unit?

Excellent!

Even if you don't trust the cloud, the companies that you do business with are moving their storage and computing there in droves. Note the major cloud providers trusted by industry (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM...).

http://www.enterprisetech.com/2016/02/16/another-bullish-forecast-for-cloud-adoption/

If a typical laptop power supply is rated to consume 1.6 Amps (max) @ 120VAC (the rating on my Dell), then the inverter would draw almost 15 Amps at 13VDC assuming it was 100% efficient, which it isn't. Assuming 85% efficiency, it would draw almost 18 Amps at 13VDC IF the laptop power supply was running at max power (which is probably unlikely). If the inverter is correctly rated at 500 Watts, then it would likely work fine IF the inverter was connected directly to the battery. If it won't, then there's likely a problem with the inverter. On the other hand, if the inverter is plugged into the cigarette lighter socket, the voltage drop through the fuse, wiring harness, etc. could be sufficient to drop the DC input voltage to the inverter below its rated input, causing it to shut down. Try attaching it directly to the battery (if you haven't already), and see if you get the same result. Only 0.2 ohm of resistance from the battery/alternator to the inverter would drop the inverter input voltage below 10 volts with a 190 watt load, and many inverters have a low input voltage cut-off to prevent discharging the battery. If you want to use the full capacity of the inverter, consider running dedicated wiring (maybe 8-10 AWG or larger stranded copper) directly from the battery to the inverter. Best not to mount the inverter under the hood close to the battery (heat), but if your battery is in the trunk, you could mount it there with a DC relay to turn it on/off as has been suggested.

There's a restaurant in Morehead City, NC that periodically has Lion Fish on the menu (in an effort to help diminish this invasive species in local waters!)

... Seagate has a great reliability reputation in the computer industry...

With respect, their enterprise-class drives - yes (despite the FC/SCSI Barracuda 7 massive recall). Their consumer-class drives - not so much.

A RAID device is a redundancy group of hard drives that uses a number of hard drives to multiply the performance characteristics of a single drive to increase speed, capacity or reliability/availability, or all three. It is intended as working storage, not as a backup. The only exception is that some companies use mirrored RAIDs (in separate locations) instead of backup because the size of the data is too large (or performance requirements are too high) for a conventional backup to tape.

Well said. :thumbup: