When you buy something like a hard drive enclosure from a second-tier manufacturer for such a low price, there are certain expectations: shoddy workmanship, poorly translated manual, baffling packaging, poor design, etc. I'll confess I had those expectations, but I didn't expect it to matter -- I wanted this enclosure for one-time use, to clone my Macbook's current drive onto a new (higher capacity) drive before installing it.
However, the enclosure I received couldn't be more different than what I expected. It came beautifully packaged in a box with a nice little manual (with pictures and clear English), a carrying pouch, USB cable, installation screws, and even a screwdriver! As other reviews have mentioned, the included cable is a y-cable to allow a high-speed drive to draw power from 2 USB ports if necessary. This is the kind of thoughtful packaging you expect from high-end consumer electronics, not a cheap one-time-use drive enclosure. The enclosure itself is solid aluminum and just barely bigger than the 2.5" drives it's designed for. It has a sleek, simple design and flawless construction -- there's no flex to it at all and not a single rough edge.
After (easily) installing the drive within the enclosure, there's still no feel of flexing, and shaking the apparatus gently produces no noise or sense of movement. All seems very snug and secure (there's a padded foam cushion inside one end of the enclosure to help with this).
When I turned it on, the drive loaded up flawlessly. There was a small vibration noise, but considerably less than you would expect from (for example) a hard drive fan in a PC case. The enclosure became warm to the touch over time, but not hot, which I took as a sign that the aluminum was conducting heat away as desired.
All in all, I couldn't be more pleased with this enclosure, especially given the low price. I don't remember the last time I was so pleasantly surprised by an electronics purchase. Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure
Not much to say about hard drive enclosures. This one works well and it is cheap. Very slim design, looks nice, easy to install and the fact that it's aluminum means no fans are necessary. The aluminum casing keeps the drive cool at all times. I used a 7200rpm drive in the enclosure to transfer a large amount of files and the enclosure never heated up at all.
Also included was a little screwdriver, 4 screws to secure the drive and a nice vinyl pouch to store the enclosure in. The included USB cable utilizes a Y-type end adapter (2 USB-A connections opposite the mini-USB plug), this is so that the drive may draw extra power from the device you're connecting it to. I just use one of the USB plugs and it works fine on my laptop.
One issue to address is the fact that this enclosure was meant to also work for slightly "taller" 2.5-inch drives, so normal drives will not fit so securely inside. You can hear the drive rattling inside if you shake it. This is easily remedied by simply folding up a piece of paper and wedging it in the small space between the drive and the enclosure. This won't affect performance or harm the drive at all, and will completely fix that (minor) issue.
Overall a fantastic enclosure, especially for the price.
First let me explain why I needed this product. I had a 3 year old laptop which stopped working and was out of warranty, so I went and got a repair estimate for the laptop which turned out to be much higher than I'd expected. I decided to part it out but kept the hard drive because it was fully functional and had ample space which would be ideal as a portable USB HDD. I didn't own any portable HDDs but have always considered getting one for transferring large DVD movie files. I searched around for a quality aluminum enclosure that didn't break the bank which is where this Vantec comes in.
When looking for an enclosure for the hard drive I decided to go with Vantec because they have a good reputation for external enclosures. I own one of their DVD drive enclosures and have been very happy with it. I used it as a portable DVD burner. When I went looking for a hard drive enclosure I wanted something simple but of good quality and low cost so I ended up with this Vantec model which fit the bill perfectly.
This model is simple..very simple. It has a single green power/activity LED and one mini USB jack. The exterior design is very nice and the enclosure itself is made of aluminum so it helps cool the hard drive inside. The enclosure comes with a USB Y cable that has two fullsize USB jacks but for my use I only needed to plug in one. If you're using a power hungry highspeed HDD then you may need to use two USB ports to power it. Assembly was equally simple with only two screws. A small screwdriver is also included.
One thing to note is that my HDD slightly rattled inside the enclosure. It wasn't a deal breaker but I didn't like the rattle so I came up with a simple fix by sticking 4 very thin double sided pieces of foam tape on the 4 corners of the HD inside of the enclosure. This cured the rattle. The tape I used was about 1 - 1.5mm thick and I only peeled off one side of the tape in order to stick it onto the HD. I left the other side covered so it wouldn't stick to the inside of the HD enclosure.
After assembly I plugged it into my computer and started transferring about 75GBs of data without any problems. The HD stayed very cool and the transfer was very fast. All in all I'm very happy with this product and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for something that is simple, low cost, stylish, of good quality and performance.
The Pros
Comes with a case, small screwdriver, and looks to be well made for the price
The Cons
Does not fit a 1tb 2.5 inch drive that is slightly larger height.
Could not find anywhere on the description where it states this limitation and some of the reviews on this product led one to belive that it would fit one of the slightly thicker 2.5inch drives (because of stating the extra height and loose drives for conventional drive heights)
I give 3 reviews, because this information is very simple to define, and to state by the manufacturer, which is either an intentional or ignorant oversite.For users who are using the smaller drives (like a 320gb drive), then ths is a good buy, and would recomend it.
This oversite of description seems to be in common for a number of cases, and i will continue my search for a case for this drive. - Hdd Enclosure - Sata - Drive Enclosures - Hard Drive Enclosure'
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