Packaging and Appearance

Appearance is a minor note, after all beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I like to think that if I am going to make something look awesome, my pieces of equipment should look equally impressive.

I first started by opening the duplicator from its box, but to my surprise, inside the box was another box. This duplicator comes double boxed! Definitely an advantage especially if you order one online. I opened the second box to find the whole duplicator surrounded in protective packaging and quickly pulled out the tower. The tower was exactly the same as the images on the website; came with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard as advertised. The duplicator’s weight wasn’t too bad as it only weighs 29-33lbs depending on if it’s in its shipping box or not, so you may need someone to help you lift it out of the box.

Appearance wise, I loved the Accutower. I have seen many USB duplicators before, usually all black or beige and in what appears to be a late 90’s computer case. But this Accutower came in a blue/black case, mesh front with 25-in-1 card reader, DVD/CD drive, power/reset buttons, two front USB ports, 1 E-SATA, and audio input/output. Needless to say, the late 90’s tower was nowhere to be seen.

Setup

With the Duplicator out of the box, I began the setup process. The Accutower Flash XL2800 USB Duplicator comes with a Quick Start Guide to help you get started. I first started by plugging in all the necessary cables, hooked up the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I then hit the power button to let the testing begin.

The duplicator fired up very similar to any other duplicator or PC I have used in my life, but I was shortly greeted by the “Master USB Command Center”. This non-Windows, stand-alone, duplicator earned huge brownie points in my book as I no longer had to worry about Windows ability to only recognize a total of 26 individual storage devices. A blue progression bar soon appeared overlapping the Master USB Command Center background visually displaying how much till the duplicator was ready to use. Once it was finished, the interface loaded, and I was ready to start copying!

For my tests, I decided to use two main methods. The first method would be to copy from a master to target USB drives directly. My second method would be to copy my files from a master, to the duplicators 250GB internal hard drive, then copy my files from the hard drive to the target USB drive.

Copying and Operation

First Method - My first test, and probably the easiest and most common was to copy from one master device, to multiple target USB drives. My files totaled 953.94 MB, with some being rather large, and others being really small.

I started my procedure by first inserting my Master USB drive, and once it was recognized by the system, selecting it as a source. As a note, when the duplicator recognizes your master sources, they will be highlighted “Grey”. You must physically select with your mouse the source; which will then be highlighted with a “Blue” color instead of Grey. I then inserted my 28 target USB drives one by one; which promptly turned grey on the monitor.

Once my source was selected, I hit the “Copy” button and the duplicator went straight to work. The target drives turned blue while the duplicator was checking each individual drive for any problems, and then they turned yellow; which indicates that all the drives passed and data transfer has begun. It took an average of 31 seconds to successfully copy nearly 1GB of information to 28 different USB drives from a USB Master. Once copying was completed, each target drive turned “Green” signaling completion.

I repeated this process several times ensuring that each copy was successful, and that they were accurately copied. To my surprise, everything went smoothly all the times I tried it without a single failure.

Second Method – My second test was to copy information from a master onto the internal hard drive, then transfer the data to the target USB drives. I started this process like method one, selecting the source. I then selected Image Manager>Create/Load New Image; which allowed me to save a new image of my master source onto the hard drive for future use.

Note: The hard drive is big enough to save many images of information, naming them appropriately helps with remembering which image is which.

I then proceeded to click Select image under “Select Source” to choose my information. Selecting my image is very similar to selecting any other master source. I then promptly hit “Copy” again and away the duplicator went. Everything after this point was identical to my first test; drives turned blue upon mounting, yellow signaling copy had begun, and green when copy was finished.

Like method one, I repeated this process several times looking for anything that may indicate a problem or an unsuccessful copy; but had no such luck. I also used multiple master sources such as SD cards, Smart Cards, Etc. to ensure that you can copy from one kind of master source onto multiple USB drives.

Common Problems/Mistakes

While testing the Accutower Flash XL2800, I happened to encounter several common problems and personal mistakes that I kept making during the duplication process. The first problem I encountered was inserting the USB drives into the duplicator. Several of the USB drives were coming up with a “Black” color after being inserted; which the manual says could be a bad partition on the individual drive, or that it was inserted incorrectly. Of course my inserting skills had failed me and every single USB drive that turned “black” was in fact inserted incorrectly. A simple fix later and all USB drives were operational.

The other small mistake I made and the reason for the “Note:” above was because I named data images incorrectly. I found out that while testing and simply naming my images as “Data 1”, or “Data 2”, made it hard to remember which data set was from a USB, and which was from a SD card or any other form of master input. Naming the images relevant to what they actually are is recommended: Example: BFG Corporation- USB.

Final Thoughts

Overall the Accutower Flash XL2800 USB Duplicator far exceeded my expectations. It came double boxed for added protection through shipping, setup was super easy, and the stand-alone design allowed me to put it in anywhere I wanted. The duplicator was quiet, fired up in a short period of time, and copied from multiple master sources rather quickly.

Giant “Thumbs Up” goes to the XL2800 for being a stand-alone, non-Windows using, duplicator. These two giant advantages help keep this duplicator from being infected with spyware, malware, and other forms of computer viruses. It also allows more storage devices to be connected to a single tower as well; as compared to PC required duplicators.

Perhaps my only little pet peeve with the Accutower Flash XL2800 USB Duplicator is during the copying process, a dialog box saying “Copying in progress…” doesn’t appear. This is simply a minor inconvenience and really is only noticeable when copying large amounts of data, but still caught my eye.

For more detailed information about the Accutower Flash XL2800 USB Duplicator and where to buy, visit PremiumUSB.com

The Accutower Flash XL2800 is now only $1,299 and comes with all the bells and whistles to get your next duplication project into full swing. Each duplicator comes with a mouse, keyboard, LCD monitor, MasterUSB software license, and standalone Accutower Flash XL2800 Command Center.
This USB copier will copy up to 28 drives simultaneously, which is great for preloading your content onto custom thumb drives, and can be expanded to 49 or 77 drive capacity with an available Add-On tower from Premium USB.

The new lower price of $1,299 allows Accutower Flash to compete with other companies such as Nexcopy or Aleratec, but still offer superior features for the price range. The Accutower Flash XL2800 also features a newly released Add-On tower, the Accutower Flash 2100C, which incorporates SD card duplication. With this Add-On tower, you are now able to copy SD cards.

So for those who want to get the most “bang for their buck”, look no further than Accutower Flash XL2800. To learn more about the Accutower Flash XL2800 and many other great products, visit www.PremiumUSB.com. Premium USB is the #1 source for USB duplication equipment and USB products.

I will start by reviewing the Nexcopy USB200PC 20 Drive USB Duplicator; which requires a PC to run. I first started by putting the duplicator on top of my desk and plugged it into the back of my desktop computer. The duplicator measures 7.9” x 7.9”x 5.2”h and took up a lot less desk space than I first imagined. I then plugged in 20 USB drives with one being the master USB drive containing a large number of files. I went through the software and started copying the information from the master drive to the blank drives. The Nexcopy duplicator started copying and did so at a reasonable pace, but I thought it could have been a little faster. I then did some research and found out that the duplicator’s speed can vary depending on how fast the host computer is. So for those with an old PC, you may run into some problems.

Once the USB copying was completed, I then went through several of the copies to determine if the duplicator did in fact copy my files correctly and accurately. As I predicted, the duplicator did as advertised and copied all the drives flawlessly. However, one thing that did end up annoying me as I kept repeating the duplication process was that every time I put in a USB drive into the duplicator, a new window appeared. With 20 USB drives, I got 20 different windows. Now this can be an annoyance like it was for me, but it may not bother some. However, these windows can come in handy because it allows the user to view each drive’s information individually.

Now for the Accutower Flash XL2800 28 Drive USB Duplicator, which is a standalone duplicator. The first thing I noticed between the Nexcopy duplicator and Accutower Flash is the fact that the Accutower Flash looked very similar to an actual desktop computer. It was physically bigger, measuring at 19.25”x 8”x 17”h, and was considerably heavier than the Nexcopy. I think the reason why the Accutower is bigger is because it contains everything you need in one unit instead of having to rely on another computer to duplicate. Besides the weight and size, I think the Accutower has a huge advantage over the Nexcopy due because if your computer crashes, not only is your computer down, but your duplicator is down as well. But with the Accutower Flash, if it were to crash, you would only be out a duplicator.

I loaded up the Accutower Flash with 28 Drives, followed the instructions, and began to duplicate. In a matter of seconds the Accutower Flash was finished duplicating. I was actually in awe as to how fast it copied. I verified that the USBs I was using were the same exact ones from my Nexcopy test and that the copies were 100% accurate. To my amazement, they were. I should also note that the Accutower has several ways to load master files unlike the Nexcopy. Accutower supports SD cards, CDs or DVDs, as well as USB drives. However, comparing the Nexcopy to Accutower, I did like how the Nexcopy duplicator allowed me to view the contents of each USB drive, unlike the Accutower Flash.

Overall, my first impressions of the two duplicators were rather impressive. Both duplicators proved to be reliable, accurate, and trustworthy machines. The Nexcopy duplicator proved to be lighter, smaller, and held 20 USB drives. While the Accutower Flash was more powerful, faster, and held 28 USB flash drives. Despite the fact that both duplicators provided the same results, if I had to choose between the two towers, I would go with the Accutower Flash for several reasons. First the size of the Accutower Flash itself is bigger than the Nexcopy, but if you were to factor in that the Nexcopy requires a PC, you will notice that the Accutower actually takes up less space.

Second the speed of the Accutower Flash was obvious. You could say it was a “night and day” difference. The Nexcopy took longer to recognize the drives, took longer to copy the drives, and I could see the system being vulnerable to viruses or PC crashes. Since the Accutower is a standalone duplicator, its speed is built in, the software recognizes the USB drives much faster, and is unaffected by computer viruses.

Lastly the price for the two duplicators, which is currently $1299.00 each, became a deciding factor. I looked at the price of the duplicators, compared their features and flaws, and what accessories came with each system, and noticed that the Accutower gave you more for your money. Accutower gave me 8 more USB slots, a 17” monitor, keyboard/mouse combo, and operation manuals. With the Nexcopy I only received the duplicator and manuals.