20 Best External Hard Drive Case (2023 Updated)

Vantec/Nexstar products are simply the best overall choice, based on build quality. You know how you want tools that aren’t industrial grade, but swimming right up next to it? That’s how I feel about Vantec, I don’t want to go overboard on hard to find, quantity priced pro gear, but I don’t want to be disappointed either.

This goes double for HDD enclosures; even name brand ones are basically junk. The price that I paid at my local Microcenter was equal to the generic that initially caught my eye. Furthermore, cheaper models weren’t that much cheaper.

You may be asking, what’s so good about it. Well, the case is one piece of metal, pretty sure it’s aluminum; plus, everything fits together well. The circuit board is laid out in a wide, uncramped fashion, and more to the point, it has an energy friendly “kill switch.

” As an unexpected perk, the included screwdriver has a stronger magnetic field than my “Harbor Freight” drivers and that makes assembly easier.

I have 3 of these. I used them primarily to back up my Blu ray/DVD movie library and family pics and videos on a hard drive and hook it to may OPPO 203 via USB, to watch movies on demand. Advantage of this model is that it can use up to 8TB hard drive.

At about 30GB per movie thats about 260 Others are limited to 4TB HD. Just scroll through the titles and select, rather than scanning the bookcase or drawers for DVD cases. If you want to try this make sure that your Blu Ray player will play NFTS format or M2TS file input to USB, or you will have to convert the file.

I have a little over two dozen of these Vantec NexStar TX 3. 5″ enclosures and I’ve been very happy with them. Most contain drives I use to hold movies and TV shows I’ve offloaded from Dish Network Hopper DVRs.

Most of the drives I’ve installed in them are either Seagate or Toshiba, with capacities from 1 TB to 8 TB. They have an aluminum case with plastic end caps over the ends connectors. The aluminum shell does a great job of dissipating the heat from any drive I’ve mounted in one of these enclosures.

There are rubber feet so that you can lay the enclosure flat with the drive horizontal, and there is a stand so you can stand the enclosure vertical with the drive vertical. Most of my drives have the enclosure in the vertical orientation as I find this achieves the best heat dissipation.

If you are going to use the enclosure in the vertical orientation, I strongly recommend you use the included stand for maximum stability and significantly reduced risk of the enclosure falling over. Assembly is very simple and easy and takes only a few minutes.

The enclosure kit includes a small Philips screwdriver so no tools are needed! These are great cases! Highly Recommended! If you need an eSATA interface (I have some drives that connect via eSATA), there is a model that has both USB 3.

0 and eSATA interfaces that I have a few of and are also great!.

The replacement unit has been working just fine. That’s the way it is these days. No quality control at the manufacturer. I suppose it is cheaper to replace than to make sure it went out the door working properly.

So many reviews at vendor sites are heavily weighted to highest rating and lowest rating. If it works out of the box and performs as expected, top rating. If it is DOA, bottom rating. I only deal with vendors with a consumer-favorable return policy.

I will spend a few more bucks to buy from the Vendor, rather than an “affiliate”. I am purchasing another one Installed a new Toshiba 8TB NAS 300 drive. Straightforward installation. There is no way to get it wrong.

It has to be properly connected to install the four drive mounting screws, and there is only one way to do it. I plugged everything in, and nothing happened when I turned it on. The fan did not work, nor did I hear the drive spin up.

I plugged into a different outlet, and the blue LED came on and the fan worked, for less than ten seconds and everything quit. I tried connecting to a different computer and power strip and the LED came on briefly, no fan.

I tried a different hard drive, Seagate 400GB that I know works, and all I got was the LED briefly lighting up. I hope the new hard drive was not damaged. I have about ten Rosewill RX-358 and Armer enclosures.

Have used them for years without ANY trouble.

The volume control style fan control is boss. Its a little flimsy in the way the disk carriage slides into the housing but it looks nice enough and works just fine with a 16tb drive. I did have to buy an extra one because one of the keepers inside were the two screws which hold the “tray” stripped out, guess thats why they give the two extra screws? I might send the stripped one back or just put another drive into it and keep it as a spare? There are no others I could find which claim to work above 8tb so thats why the full 5, what else can ya do at this time?.

It is not as straightforward to use as most other external drive enclosures (see cons), but there is currently not many competition. But will buy again out of necessity.

I’m getting read and write speeds of about 390MBs (0. 4GBs) on USB 3. 2 with an Intel drive vs theoretical max of 10GBs. My internal NVME drive reads at 3. 4GBs and writes at 2. 3GBs, which probably means the processor isn’t the bottleneck.

I doubt it’s the USB port, but it could be part of the problem. My external spinning drive reads and writes at about 0. 03GBs, so the NVME is a huge improvement relatively speaking. Bottom line, works as expected in that I always expect external drives to be slow, so it gets the thumbs up, but I wonder if cheaper enclosure would have been just as fast.

I have a 500GB Samsung 970 EVO (the original one, not the 970 EVO Plus variant). That drive was showing 3300/2500 MBps in my laptop. (Sequential read/write performance using Crystal Disk Mark 7. 0. ) Then I installed it into the Sabrent enclosure.

I have a number of laptops and desktops that all claim to have “USB 3. 1 Gen 1” ports and USB C ports that claim 5 Gbps transfer rates. Be aware that “USB 3. 1 Gen 1” is, in fact, only USB 3. 0 – with the same 5 Gbps max transfer rate, and not the 10 Gbps that USB 3.

1 Gen 2 can boast. So all of these systems were showing me about the same 450-460 MBps transfer rates that I was getting with SATA SSDs attached to external enclosures or USB converter cables. Clearly, the limiting factor is the speed of the ports on my computers.

I also used a small scale to weigh a few of my available portable SSD products with drives installed: 6. 1oz Sabrent EC-NVME w/ OEM USB C/A cable 6. 0oz Sabrent EC-NVME w/ StarTech USB C to USB A cable (shorter, so less cable coiled up in a laptop bag) 2.

8oz 2. 5″ Crucial MX500 w/ Startech SATA to USB A cable 2. 2oz Vantec NexStar SX (m. 2 SATA enclosure) w/ OEM USB C cable 2. 6oz Vantec NexStar SX (m. 2 SATA enclosure) w/ StarTech USB C to USB A cable If you’re carrying something around in your laptop bag, especially for the purposes of servicing tech support clients, you might be better off with a common SATA SSD and an adapter cable.

That SATA SSD will also give you the flexibility of connecting to an internal SATA cable on a desktop. The Sabrent is too heavy, especially if you don’t need (or can’t get) the speeds that it claims.

Unless they revise this with a better interface NO I do not recommend this drive case at all for anything. There are others on the market and I will be looking as soon as I RMA this one back to Newegg.

A proper type C usb interface is capable of speed beyond the capabilities of any drive that could be put in it as of this writing. If need be then make the case bigger. There is absolutely no excuse for this except poor or budget electrical design.

Someone at Sabrent should be fired for this and allowing it to go to market or even thinking it was a good idea. Extremely disappointed with it and with everything else I have gotten from Sabrent I expected this to be a winner.

This is a waste of aluminum.

We have used portable hard drives for years to back up our system and have been through a few enclosures. This one is easy to set up but I doubt it’s longevity. The hard drive just slides in. There are no screws to keep it from sliding in the enclosure.

Also the cover just slides into place with no screws to keep it from coming open. If you are going to place these on your desk and never move them they would be great. For us we take them back and forth from home with us, so it gets jostled around in my bag going home and coming back.

I can’t say how long they last since we just got them.

For some odd reason my PC straight up died and just wouldn’t boot up. My friend told me that it could be that Windows was broken and I needed to reset the PC. I had a lot of files on the computer and I didn’t really want to loose all of it so I bought one of these and took the files off the hard drive and put it through to an external hard drive.

Managed to save the files and was a great help. Also good if you have a 3. 5″ hard drive somewhere and need more storage space.

I’d recommend it to people who need an inexpensive enclosure for high capacity drives they’re just going to park on a shelf, where they can easily access the power button. I’ll be doing that with my 8TB Ironwolf drive.

I’d like to see Orico either eliminate the power button entirely or change to one that locks on and fix the lid to snap FIRMLY in place, or add a way to hold it securely with a screw or two.

Product is good and works as intended. The issue I had is my fault for not researching better. I purchased a Crucial SSD to replace laptop spinning hard drive. The free Acronis cloning software from Crucial requires a Crucial drive to be seen in the system.

The software saw Sabrent attached drive and not the Crucial drive in it I wanted to clone to. After using a different free cloning software I was successful. This is no fault of the product and I am quite happy with the external drive.

The on/off switch is handy and the drive comes with a 30ish inch (aprox 76cm) Type A connector USB cable. The case is plastic and the cover slides off. No tools are required. The case has an internal rubber sponge pad to keep the drive pushed forward into the contacts.

I wasn’t comfortable with the force required and the angle of insertion. If you use something to push back and hold the pad during installation, the drive drops right in and slides easily into the connector.

Considering the cost of the product I think this is non-issue, just something to be aware of. The pad holds the drive firmly in place.

Needed more, so this is a reorder. Daughters computer from years ago died. She needed some essays she had written to its hard drive. Was a real hero when within 10 mins, had dismounted the drive and she was able to view and print the files she was desperate for.

This drive housing is great! She now has a 500mb detatchable storage drive. I have several dead computers and will be salvaging pics, docs from them and maybe making a few external drives too!.

The Sabrent 2. 5″ Hard drive enclosure is fantastic value for money. It is faster than many other for read and write times, I know this as i have tested them thoroughly. This is the 4th unit i have purchase, the first one i was simply amazed at the speed of it.

i Up graded my laptop to full Samsung SSD and the 1TB Samsung Sata i put into my first Sabrent enclosure and connected it to the USB3 port on my laptop, from that point onward all i will use is Sabrent Enclosures.

My 2nd Sabrent Enclosure i purchased for no other reason than to test it against my Seagate and Western Digital Portable hard drives. I removed the hard drive from their enclosures and tested them in the Sabrent and the speed difference was fantastic.

The only difference was Sabrent’s electronics and that two drives are now in Sabrent enclosures. This latest enclosure (My 4th) is for a Samsung SSD to go in for use as a Scratch disk for Adobe Photoshop.

These enclosures are fast, reliable, well made and simple to add hard drives too, they also handle faster SSD without any issues. They use USB3 A socket which i prefer over the other type of USB3 socket that is narrow and wide.

The cable is a proper length also unlike many others. They may cost a little more but that small extra cost is well worth it for the speed and reliability. I work on large files, sometimes Gigabytes in size so fast data transfers is important to me and these enclosures are fantastic.

Great product. Years ahead of what was available a short time ago. Seems to be of quality construction. Very reasonably priced. I am very pleased with it. Great way to re-purpose a SATA drive.

I bought the Sabrent 2. 5-Inch SATA to USB 3. 0 Hard Drive Enclosure for my newer drives. It seems that I am having speed issues with large drives 500gb or more. It’s more of an indexing issue not the USB connection I am hoping.

It is nice that it is tool free, so I can swap between drive easy. It is worth the price and works as specified.

I was very happy with the hard drive case. I highly recommend the hard drive case to anyone looking for something protective but affordable. I have had the hard drive case for a long time now and it stills works as good as when I purchased it.

The only thing is that the case is very fitting depending what time of type and size of hard drive you are wanting to keep in the case. Overall it is a good deal for the price.

Bought two- one red and one black. Perfect for my G-Technology G-Drive Mobile USB-C 2TB Harddrive. Held in place by approx 1. 2 in wide elastic strap. When the drive is placed in the case there is about 1/2 in length remaining space and 0 in width remaining space.

Drive fits securely. Drive Dimensions: 4. 33 in Length X 3. 23 in width X. 41 in thick. Case exterior to me is “firm” not “hard. ” You can compress it but it is resistant. With the USB cable in the mesh pocket it is a comfortable fit for thickness.

I am comfortable it will protect my drive from most minor mishaps and carrying circumstances. There is no “cushion” inside. My older WD My Passport Ultra 2 TB also fits but it is thicker ( about 5/8 in or a smidgen more) and with the USB cable in the mesh pocket that is about all the case can take.

I would buy again. Pics are of G-Drive in case.

I am using this case to store my WD 2TB My Passport External Hard Drive. The cover is semi rigid which provides some protection against accidentally banging the hard drive, although I would not want to drop the hard drive.

It also provides a separate area for storing the USB cable which comes with the hard dive. Very convenient.

I bought this to use an external SSD with my iMac, because the original HDD was getting very slow. I like the metal construction and that a screwdriver was thoughtfully included. It didn’t come with any foam pads (as I’ve seen other enclosures do), the drive was just left to float inside.

However, the biggest negative is that it doesn’t support the faster UASP protocol (and in hindsight I probably should have figured this out from the specifications). Since this was going to be the primary drive for my computer that was a deal breaker.

Fortunately the Best Buy return process was very easy.

I love a good open box sale. This item is brand new, just returned. I got it for I think close to 50% off its original price. It was extremely easy to put in a sad SSD drive. It came with the screws and tightened up very easily.

It’s lightweight, yet solid. The only thing Preventing me from giving it five stars is that it does not have another USB port so you can daisychain another device, which usually means you have to get a powered hub for your computer, and also that it doesn’t have an external power supply option.

I don’t expect something of this price to include the power supply, but I would like and enclosure that gives me the option to provide my own as some computers and hard drives perform better or even require external power.

But for the price I paid, it did the trick and I can’t complain.

My laptop hasn’t been working for years and I carried it from place to place in hopes of one day getting it fixed to get my files off of it. I was doing some research one day and saw that I could just buy one of these little nifty drive readers and get access to my files without having to get my laptop fixed! It is exactly what I needed and I was able to see old pictures that I haven’t seen in years, including pictures of my old cat who passed years prior.

This was definitely worth the purchase!.

I love these things. The USB performance of the enclosure is fine. The clear case is wonderful. I have moved to SSDs in our laptops and have all the original hard drives (going back15 years) available for use as pocket drives.

Searching all of them out, I had 2 1TB, 2 640s, 2 500s and 2 120s. With diskpart, I found that I can clean the drives, make an MBR primary partition, format to NTFS and assign a drive letter so that I can load them up with.

MP4 files to watch through the USB port on the TV or Blu-Ray player. I ran into problems initially because I had the drives set up as GPT instead of MBR and I thought it was the orico enclosures. it was the disk format that was not being recognized.

After getting it all sorted out, I was able to use these on the TV or to just back up pictures and videos using those old drives that were just laying around gathering dust. I found them at a good price, ordered 2 in order to check it out and then ordered 3 more.

For the TV, even the ancient 120GB drives are way faster than any of my USB sticks.

Opened box, slid case open with no problem, inserted 250GB SanDIsk SSD Plus into case – it fit nice and snug. I connected the USB cable to the case – also nice snug fit. Plugged into my Windows 10 port.

It saw the drive immediately. I formatted it. I started using it. No problems. Would buy again. There’s a piece of foam that sticks somewhere, but I’m not quite sure where it goes. I guess inside the case to help cushion the drive.

-It’s bad enough that the enclosure disconnects at random, which makes using it to transfer large files or as an external enclosure for recording video impossible -When it disconnects and then reconnects, it actually interferes with other attached storage, which is just bizarre.

I have another USB bay with 2 HDDs in it. When this enclosure has a problem, it also seems to disconnect those, as Windows Explorer will also open up their root directories and the Windows 10 drive disconnect/reconnect sound will be heard twice.

I can’t tell if it’s a Windows 10 issue or a USB issue, but considering that it only impacts other USB devices, it may be causing a problem with the actual USB hardware on the motherboard, which is a quite worrisome possibility.

-I debated about leaving just 1 egg, but I wanted to be as fair as possible. I like the enclosure itself, but something about the firmware or circuitry is clearly defective in the one I received.

This enclosure is not plug and play in terms of swapping installed drives. The instructions inside the box say not to uninstall a drive once it’s installed because doing so could potentially cause damage.

The damage would be to the internal plastic tabs that have nodules that fit into the screw holes on the sides of the drive. This info should have been part of the product description. Makes this enclosure too inflexible.

Returning it.

My situation? I had a 4 TB 3. 5″ HDD that became my backup in a PC that I was getting rid of, in favor of a huge 27″ AIO touchscreen desktop (also bought at BestBuy – it’s great BTW). But a 4 TB HDD, with all my company’s website stuff on it, was too much to just dump.

I needed to find an enclosure that I could use to take the HDD with me wherever I went (we run a major event with lots of video & audio use), so that if I needed something stored on our NAS, I wouldn’t need to rely on Internet speeds to download a 4-6 GB file from the NAS via VPN or other methods.

This enclosure fit the bill perfectly. It holds the 3. 5″ HDD very securely. I will say there’s a bit of a trick to getting the HDD to slide on to the connector inside, but it’s more a finesse thing than difficult-to-do.

Once secured, simply slide the aluminum frame back on and secure it with the set screw, and you’re done! No plastic outside frame to have to worry about cracking. With USB 3. 0, I know I’m getting the fastest transfer speed possible with this HDD, and the included stand allows you to keep the enclosure in an upright position if you want, or you can simply lay it flat on the desk.

I’ve used this for over a month, and it has yet to even get warm, let alone hot, so clearly airflow isn’t a problem. Be aware – this is NOT a USB-powered enclosure – it comes with its own power supply.

Overall, if you’re looking for a secure, portable solution for any 3. 5″ HDD, this is the item you need!.

This was the first time I had to purchase an enclosure for one of my hard drives. I’m glad I went with this one because instructions were simple, and it has so far held up nicely. It’s been a few months, and I wanted to wait to write this review in case something happened to the case.

If you’re looking to make an old hard drive into an external, this case is a good choice to go with.

I have two of these. One (A) holds my raw photos (46 megapixel raw 14-bits depth is big). The other (B) holds Lightroom database backups. With several levels of replication and off-site backup in my infrastructure there is no worry about data loss, by the way.

Relative to a 2. 5″ SSD, these boxes are big, but I made this choice on purpose. Small things are easily lost or nicked. The Mil-spec and IP rating claimed in the brochure are very realistic in everyday life.

During tethered shoots, (A) hangs off my notebook & tether table (A) has Samsung Pro that can sustain roughly 10 times the rewrites of the EVO SSD in (B) which will almost never be rewritten. The box could be a lot smaller, but as indicated, I prefer it in my use cases.

Make sure to label well, as Windows sees the USB-SATA-UAS controller chip and not the drive behind that. (Disk properties can reveal the volumes or driver letters though. Just label for the cases you need to quickly dash off with the right one.

).

I paired this enclosure with a SanDisk Ultra 3D NAND 2TB Internal SSD formatted as ExFAT/GUID. Sequential read/write speeds were both around 450MB/sec, tested on macOS and Windows 10. This enclosure feels good in the hand.

It’s so durable, I feel comfortable throwing it in a bag and knowing that it won’t scratch my other devices because it doesn’t have any exposed metal, just thick high quality plastic and a nice rubber jacket.

The water resistance is a bonus. I like to think of this as a LifeProof Case for my SSD. I’ll update if anything changes, but I’ve been really happy.

This Startech Rugged USB 3. 1 enclosure was plug-n-play on Linux (Fedora 29). Additionally, it passes the SMART commands through to the drive, so you can use the ‘smartctl’ command to view and test the drive health.

Performance is excellent, as you would expect with USB 3. 1. It does require an allen wrench to snug the six little screws which hold the casing together. They thoughtfully included the tool in the box, so you have everything you need.

Simply add your favorite HDD or SSD.

Reliable High Speed Raid Enclosure for 2. 5″ SSD’s and HD’s. With two SSD’s Raid 0 can transfer at over 700 MB/sec through via the USB-C port. Easily swap in/out drive pairs. And useful for older drives gathering dust as well.

Purchased the second one for the other desktop to provide additional fast external storage. Compatible. And easily set up for different configurations. And includes a fan.

I was looking for something small that would take a couple of large SSDs. This unit is very small. It makes no noise and although SSDs don’t generate heat, I leave the fan on at 25% just to keep air circulating.

The SSDs show up on the desktop as they should and performance is what I’d expect.

Bought this a few months ago, almost a year and it worked great. Now it does not show up when I plug it in no matter what I do with it. (Windows 10, Windows 11). At first every time I plugged it in my mouse cursor would creep all over the screen.

As soon as I unplugged this device my cursor would go back to normal. THERE ARE NO DRIVERS THAT I CAN FIND!.

This is a nice sturdy enclosure. I read the reviews complaining that the enclosure didn’t work well but so I also purchased the SaiTech IT 1 feet USB 3. 0 Dual Power Y Shape 2 X Type a to Micro B high Speed 5 Gbps Data Transfer Cable and I’ve had no problems.

I’m pleased with the purchase.

I got this slim enclosure to house a HGST 7200rpm 500GB drive. The tool-less opening / closing is really convenient. Although the latching mechanism is all plastic, so I don’t know about durability & longevity.

I don’t plan to swap drives in and out frequently so it shouldn’t be a factor. (Fingers crossed. ) Sturdy enough, I suppose. Time will tell. Finally, this may be superficial but I’m not a fan of the gigantic StarTech logo on the top lid.

Sure I get it—it’s branding. You want everyone that sees it to know whose name I paid to have stamped on it. But it could be much subtler and still serve the same purpose. Big and loud and centered on the top is overkill x3.

Not to mention, if it does what it’s supposed to and does it well, I’ll vouch for it all day long. It doesn’t need an overbearing logo on it. Oh well… can’t have it all. Nothing a few quick stripes of glossy black spray paint couldn’t fix, right? The price was right too! I paid $23.

I would recommend this item.

This is my 3rd attempt at buying a decent enclosure for use with an SSD drive and Windows 10. I bought this one because it has an ASMedia controller chip and supposedly the faster UASP mode can be made to work.

Unfortunately, it turns out the TRIM function, which is very important for long term SSD performance, does not work with this enclosure. Update: I tried the same enclosure on a different PC with an Intel USB 3.

0 controller instead of the ASMedia 1042 controller on the first PC. On this PC, TRIM is working fine, and so is UASP. The enclosure works great with top notch AS SSD benchmark scores, so I am updating my review to 5 stars.

When the motherboard failed on an old computer, I bought this to enable me to pull data from the still functional NTFS formatted 1 TB hard disk of the old computer. It did that quite nicely. I have no experience with any other similar device so I don’t really know if it’s better or worse than others.

It has an elegant case that can handle either a 3-1/2 inch (desktop) or 2-1/2 inch (laptop) sized drive. I like the case, the holder that enables one to stand it upright, the presence of an on-off switch, the grouping of the power and data cables next to the switch, the light showing that the device is on and is exchanging data with the computer, the reasonable ease of inserting the disk, and the speed of the connection.

One thing I didn’t like was the high heat generated in the device. It seems a lot hotter than the USB backup drives I have, but I don’t know if ithe heat primarily came from the disk or from the USB controller.

As one would expect I had no trouble using the device with both Windows and Linux, and no extra drivers were required to connect successfully. I’ve thought about pulling the disk out and installing it in the new computer I bought to replace the one that died, but I may just keep it in the enclosure.

My only “gripe” was that the cover did not fit well. I was able to get it secured but it didn’t just fall into place. I am guessing a little overheated in the mold. That aside, it’s intended purpose was spot on.

I have several old drives from old computers I needed to check to see how they were and what was on them so I could plan their future use or demise. I had 10 to check out and the easy to use interface made the project a breeze.

I would buy this again if I needed more external drives.

After experiencing an initial issue with accessing my external harddrive, I was advised to try a different cable. Unfortunately, I was not able to access the files and my computer was not recognizing the device.

I was worried I may have lost data on the external drive. Thankfully, I purchased this produce and I am able to retrieve files. It appears to be working great so far.

Installation of a 3. 5 inch drive could not easier, and I had this up and running right away. I am getting 250MB/s write speeds on a 10TB Seagate drive. Make sure you have the correct USB 3. 1 Gen 2 input on your computer.

I originally had this enclosure connected to a dock that was only USB 3. 0 and I was getting 40 MB/s speeds. Direct connection to the computer solved this problem. It has a helpful (but way too bright!) blue indicator light.

The case does not do much to soften the sounds of the drive, so you will hear it clunking away. The case is aluminum and feels well built. As others have mentioned, there is no fan in this case to help cool the drive.

Heat can cause drive failure, so this is concerning. The upright position is probably best for heat dissipation. I would not stack these things on top of each other. I’ve only been using it for one day of very heavy use so far.

Love how compact these are. Takes up a lot less space than a traditional AC-powered external hard drive. Easy to install your internal SATA drive inside. My only complaint is that the two screws (which keep the drive from sliding around once its installed) are very difficult to screw in.

Took me about 15 minutes of struggling to get 2 screws installed. This is why I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5. Overall, I would still recommend this product though.

I own this in black. The build quality for my unit is so terrible I have to post. Slow reads about 50MBps in CrystalMark. Seems you must be VERY careful connecting and installing. If its off you will get drive sector errors.

I reinstalled this several times. Out of about 7 installs once I had it working right. Most of the time 50MBps Reads. A couple times total fails I couldnt even format the drive with so many sector errors.

Now it reads OK. Im using all the original cables screws etc. I am connected with the right drivers to a 3. 1 Gen 2 port. Heat control on this unit is the Worst. One vent on the front. I tipped 59 Celsius and have the cover off.

Mine goes back. Drive had no sector errors after not being able to format with Windows from so many. Quality and reliability maybe. I have purchased Startech since they started somewhere around mid 90’s.

This is a bad one.

I purchased six S351BU313 enclosures to maintain my computer backups. I am using three WD2003FZEX, two WD20EARX, one WD20EZRX, and one WD3003FZEX Western Digital hard disk drives. My two computers are built using Gigabyte motherboards model GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 and GA-Z170X-UD5 which have USB3.

1 Type A and C ports. They are running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit, but were running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I have been working with StarTech. com Technical Support for months and this is the latest reply to my message about the status of a fix “I have checked in with the escalation team and they are still working on this but unfortunately we do not have a specific timeline for a fix at this time.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I will keep you updated as soon as we have any additional information. Please reach out to us if you have any other questions or concerns. We would be happy to assist you.

” Gigabytes Technical Support people have been useless in trying to solve the problem.

I had three hard drives that needed to be put into cases. Two were from laptops(an 80gb and 250gb) and the third was a 1tb from a Seagate external HD. I purchased two of these hoping that they would all fit and pick up the third one later.

Unfortunately, only the 80gb fit. The 250 was about 10. 5mm The owners manual specifies the maximum height, but I didn’t see it anywhere in the product details on newegg. com.

Bought this enclosure in 2012, it has been very reliable ever since. I have never had to use the secondary USB for extra power. It is also very inexpensive & well built. I recommend it totally.

Great for recovering SATA drives from burned-out laptops like my old Acer. After reformatting, disks make great backup drives. Good cable length, screws and screwdriver provided. Tiny screws, I used a peice of tape instead.

Works just as well.

Beware newegg seems to mix together reviews for different cases — even mixing 2. 5″ cases with 3. 5″ cases. Make sure you’re comparing reviews for the same item. This review is for the NST-370A31 case, designed for 3.

5″ hard drives. It looks like the case doesn’t have a lot of ventilation, but in my tests the case did not get too hot to touch. It gets warm with heavy disk activity, but not too hot to touch — as has happened with some other cases.

Of course, YMMV depending on the thermal characteristics of your chosen hard drive. This case is rated as USB 3. 1 Gen 2. However, SATA-III disk drives can’t even saturate a USB 3. 0 (aka, USB 3. 1 Gen 1) connection, though, so this case is actually over-designed.

In my tests with a few different disk drives, transfer speed was consistent with a couple other 3. 0 cases and docks I have — and none of which came anywhere close to SSD speeds. SSDs can go faster.

but SSDs are not 3. 5″ desktop size (they’re 2. 5″ laptop size). So this case is obviously for traditional desktop disk drives. A USB 3. 1 Gen 2 case for 2. 5″ drives may make sense because you might put a SSD in it, but for a 3.

5″ disk drive you won’t need more than a USB 3. 0 case. Nevertheless, this case works very well. Being over-designed isn’t a negative, but just don’t expect it to outperform a USB 3. 0 case with any SATA disk drive on the market today.

Vantec has always made a good case but this is far and away the best they’ve ever done. It is perfectly engineered, something I’ve never said about their earlier cases. Assembly fits snugly and yet is simpler.

And it truly takes and uses the speed advantage of the next gen USB technology. A bit on the pricey side right now but I would expect that to drop as usb 3. 1 gets into wider circulation. But still a very worthwhile investment.

I needed a larger hard drive enclosure that would not cost a lot. But could also work with a larger spinning drive. This enclosure was easy to set up, came with all the screws I needed, and cables. I would buy again if I needed another external drive setup, for spinning hard drives.

Super easy to install drive. Feels really solid and protective. Plug and play in windows 7 and 8. 1 no divers needed to be manually added. The cable that it comes with is short at only 12 inches, and I could see how this might be a negative for some people.

For me it’s ideal. But either way it shouldn’t be a deal breaker as the cable is removable/replaceable with and commonly available USB A Male to Micro B Male cable. And best of all, data transfers are wicked fast.

I was upgrading my laptop from a HDD to an SSD. I needed a SATA to USB connection to allow me to clone the old drive onto the SSD. I looked at just buying a cable to do this but then came across an idea online to use an enclosure with the added benefit of being able to instal the old HDD into it to give me an external hard drive.

The price difference between the cost of an enclosure and the cable is minimal. I chose this case as it looked rugged, installation looked easy and price was acceptable. I am not dissapointed. Super easy to use and installation quick and easy.

I highly recommend.

It is well designed for hard disk protection against vibration and impact. However it is lack of heat-sink design. If you are going to put a Hard Disk inside and copy large size file you may want to leave the case open to make the hard disk cool.

Normally when choosing an external hard disk enclosure, I would select a metal case for better heatsink. My purpose is to protecting hard disk, so this enclosure is good to me. I would give it 5-star if the clip was designed as two (close to both corners) instead of one at the center.

When the enclosure is closed, you will find the cover is not flat and both side edges are curved up a bit, which may cause possible water leak in future when the rubber seal getting old.