Vantec NS CX 3.5 SATA to USB/eSATA HD Encl-BLK

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This is a great enclosure for daily backups. My only regret is purchasing the eSATA version sooner.

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A eSATA capable enclosure marketed in the USB-only enclosure market.For $24 price matched, this is well priced eSATA enclosure. It even comes with everything you need to set up your eSATA on your own computer - included in the box is a eSATA cable, USB cable, and internal SATA to eSATA PCI bracket.Performance wise with eSATA, it's like as if it was plugged in with an internal SATA port. I picked up a WD15EADS (1.5TB Caviar Green) with this enclosure, and I managed to get an average of 81 MB/s read speed using HD Tune.The only (minor) problem is you require AHCI to be enabled to have fully functional eSATA hotswap. Because some of my computers are stuck on IDE mode, I found an alternative to getting the hotswap to work. It's not as good as true hotswapping, but it works just fine in my case.http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm

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I have this enclosure paired with a WD 1.5TB Green connected to my HTPC via eSATA, with the computer setup with drives in AHCI mode so that the eSATA connection is hot-swappable. This is truly a perfect combination considering my usage profile. The enclosure itself delivers true eSATA performance, has no problems with hot-swapping, and has nice, clean design that does not look out of place alongside my HTPC. The WD Green drive does not generate much heat at all, so this enclosure does not get hot. I don't know how it would perform if you tried to use a drive that generated a lot of heat because it only has passive cooling via the aluminum body construction. But active cooling in this case is a double-edge sword because it would come with the introduction of noise. I would much prefer a silent, passively-cooled solution, and this enclosure delivers on that.

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I installed a Seagate 7200.10 500GB hard drive in this bay. Installation takes less than 5 minutes and consists of pulling out the tray, screwing the hard drive to the tray, inserting the tray on the track in the case, plugging in the LED connector and putting in two screws to tighten the cap.USB connectivity worked immediately, but I had to install some additional drivers before my system work work properly with the eSata connection. Now the hard drive can hot swap between my systems without having to reboot them!As stated before, the middle portion is aluminum and the ends are plastic. The case does a good job of dissipating heat as I haven't seen the hard drive exceed 39C (measured using SeaTools).All in all, a good value, but don't look directly at the LED. You could go blind!!!

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Very easy to use good heat dissipation. You can just not hook up the LED light if you want to use it for something were the light would be annoying. I am using it for a Shaw PVR expander and didn't want another glowing light.

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Excellent budget case! I've paired 3 of these up with the WD Green line of HDD, and the case is cool to the touch under load! Excellent when attached to a WDTV or Asus O!play

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Needed an external drive to use with a variety of different machines. Installed a WD Caviar Black into it, and Wow! Very fast when using esata on my desktop and full backwards compatibility with my USB equipped laptop and netbook. Unit ships with a full cable package including an internal sata to external adapter. Assembly time was less than 3 minutes with all screws included (Philips screwdriver required) I use a WD Caviar Black in my Desktop, read and write times are the same for both the internal and external. My only concern is with heat, the outside of the case does get quite warm. All in All a great product for the price. You can put together an external 1 TB drive with both esata and USB capabilities for less than a prepackaged USB only external.

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I own several Vantec products and have sold them to people at my former job, so I trust their quality. I picked this enclosure up to use for a spare drive sitting around and it has not disappointed. Good heat dissipation even when doing lengthy Time Machine backups on to my Seagate 1TB drive. This is a good looking aluminum enclosure and fits on any desk, it is not ugly like some cheaper brands. The included accessories are also great if you need them, but are kind of useless if you have lots of eSATA stuff already. My only two gripes are the chassis screws that attach the tray/backplate to the aluminum - they strip easily even when using an appropriate driver bit. Also, the DC-in jack feels a bit loose, though I doubt that will affect performance, I wonder how long term reliability will be on the jack if it gets replugged a lot... This review was modfied by poster @ 10-20-09 12:10 AM

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I purchased this enclosure so I could install windows on it, and use Acronis true image to make a backup of my main system raid. works great. Now reformats take about 7 minutes, and thats with everything back to where it was, all games, and apps. Cant beat the price either.

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I have gotten many vantec and they have yet to disapoint me.This once was for my PVR and it works perfectly.

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For the price, the quality is very impressive. It even includes an eSATA bracket that can be installed in your computer. However, the included eSATA cable that can be used to connect the drive enclosure to the eSATA bracket, is too short (about 3 feet). Otherwise, it works flawlessly with various 1TB drives (Hitachi 7k1000.b, WD Green WD10EADS, and Seagate Barracuda LP).

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seems like a great enclosure, recommend getting to anyone. put an old 80gb in it, but probably will put a bigger size in it some time.

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This is a nice enclosure, diesn't cost much and give you a portable Esata.. need I say more. Well yes just get one if your humming over which to buy... don't spend to much $ on one of these!

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This enclosure is cheap, but solid, and it works well. I've matched it with a 1.5TB hard drive, and a WD HD TV media player - it's very convenient. If you are going to use eSATA, hook up the cables before turning on the enclosure, or it'll try to operate as a USB device. To use the eSATA, the computer either needs to have ACHI enabled, or you need the drive hooked up before you boot the computer.

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It’s a simple but nice looking enclosure. The sides are made of metal and the two ends are plastic. I was able to install the hard drive without any problems into the enclosure. I like that it has a rubber mount inside one end to help keep the drive snug to protect it from moving around. It came with the usb & sata cables and also an internal to external sata bracket in case your computer doesn’t have a esata port. Oh, and the blue led look really nice and didn’t bother me at all, as everything is working fine now.Now the bad part, after installing the drive, I went ahead to try it out, to my dismay, the usb didn’t work, as windows didn’t see the drive; I tried it on a friend’s computer with the same result. I then went on to try the sata transfer and that didn’t work on my computer either but it worked on my friend’s, and windows displayed the drive. I figured the sata part is working on one computer but not the other, then I remembered that my computer motherboard (Asus A7V600) supports sata 1 or 1.5gbs, so I went to the Western Digital website found the diagram for manually selecting 1.5gbs on my drive then went into my parts bin to hopefully find a spare jumper and added the jumper to make my hard drive 1.5gbs.After setting the jumper, windows recognize the drive using the usb port, I then proceeded to try the sata port and that worked too, finally. Note, that even though my friend’s computer supported sata2 and the enclosure did work in sata2 mode, I still had to set the drive to 1.5gbs for the usb port to work even on his computer. I hope this review helps others that maybe experiencing similar issues.I only wish that the manual had mentioned that you may need to set your hard drive to 1.5gbs instead of the default 3gbs for it to work properly as it would have saved me 3 hours of troubleshooting and hair pulling.

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Overall its a good product. So far so good. There is nothing very fancy, just a simple external case. No major complaints other than above. I own an Eagletech NAS, and the build quality, surprisingly is better.n Tim M: eSata is hot plugable, bios needs to be set for AHCI, not IDE mode. This review was modfied by poster @ 07-14-09 06:11 AM

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I installed the hard drive I chose into the case with absolutely no problems. Everything works well, including eSATA, although I seem to have to start the computer with the HD already on if I want to use eSATA. The USB connection is plug and play as expected and works fine too. eSATA speeds in practice are about 3 times faster for a sustained transfer.The aluminum case keeps the hard drive nice and cool, and looks good on my desk. It also has a pretty small profile compared to my older 3.5" enclosure. The power/acess LED is a very bright blue, way brighter than it needs to be and distracting in my entertainment unit.

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I put a 1 TB Hitachi in it. Has been working for a month. Is compatible with the power cords from the Ultra enclosure that I was using. I switched to get SATA from IDE

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Bought it with a WD Black edition and works really well, I had my doubts about ventilation but so far now the HD works cool enough, plus it look really nice