Icy Box Hard Drive Enclosure For 3.5 Sata Hard Drive With Sata & USB External Conectors - Black

Reasonable quality Sata enclosure - Bought this several weeks ago. It works and it is easy to set up. The passive design (no fan) means that it will have a relatively low power consumption though will be more susceptible to overheating. I use it with a media center PC and this enclosure contains a 500gb hard drive which acts as the primary storage for my recorded tv. As such it gets a lot of use and is permanently switched on. I have noticed that it has a tendancy to get quite warm and that it can refuse to operate correctly if the computer is restarted and the enclosure hasn t had time to cool down first. So far, leaving the enclosure to cool for a while and then switching back on has cured the problem. USB connection works fine. eSata is noticeably quicker but I found this worked intially but then stopped working after several days continuous use (this may because the faster interface causes the drive to run hotter). Overall not a bad product but prone to overheating with continuous extended use.

i m happy - I really wish i d thought of buying enclosures earlier before purchasing external hdd s. If like me, you have some internal hard drives lying around its an option worth pursuing.These icybox enclosures are worth the money. The box contents consist of the unit, a driver disc (only necessary for win98, xp is plug and play), adaptor, plug-lead, rubber feet,screws, a stand, internal sata plate/lead, and usb/sata cable. This means you can connect the unit via usb or install the sata plate in your pc and get faster transfer times.The unit itself is made up of a top and bottom of 1mm thick aluminium for heat transfer (in use i find these get slightly warm, no more. Even after transferring 245gb of data in one go). The unit is larger than the drive lengthways, i d guess you gain an extra inch on the length of your drive. The front of the unit has led s Green for power and Red showing use.The loss of a fifth star is caused by the fact the sides are mesh, whilst this, i assume, helps for heat dissapation, it also makes the unit quite loud when working and the constant whirring and clicking tends to annoy (me anyway).The unit is screwed together via 8 thumb-screws 4 top, 4 bottom. I wouldnt suggest stacking more than two units as the screws provide the only base for the unit above as they protrude. But you have stands to use.The rear of the unit houses the sata connector, usb connector, adaptor plug, and on/off switch.One neat thing i did like is the fact the sata power port and connecting port are fixed into the unit, so not on the end of the cable, this helps when you plug in your drive. it helps to keep it secure. You then use the screws provided to lock it in tighter by inserting them through the four holes in the bottom plate into the four holes built into the drive itself.All in all, for the money, i m very happy with the purchase. But for anyone else considering it i really think it ll depend on the size of the drive you re going to plug in. I had two 320gb drives to install, to purchase these ready to go as externals it would cost you around £100, so the cost of the enclosures was easily worth it. If you ve a 40 or 80gb drive, i d be a bit hesitant myself, unless you really want to find some use for those old drives. As you can puchase new,ready to go drives of that capacity for nearly the same money as the enclosures.

• NANOPOINT ICY BOX 3.5 SATA - USB & SATA