Thermaltake N0012US Silver External Enclosure

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I own three of these and plan to get at least one more for my storage needs. I deducted one star from features specifically because, as others have mentioned, getting the gasket to fit exactly as it should is a bit of a PITA. If they could resolve that issue, this would be perfect. This is not the solution if you plan to swap drives in and out of a case, but if you plan to install the drive in the case and leave it, this is fine. And I also agree that the on/off switch is great.

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I needed to be able to temporaly pull eSata drives from a machine and access them on another machine that has only runs SATA-1 - this solves the problem. Quiet and reliable.

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Bought this for my father to replace/restore his Fantom external drive that failed most convincingly from excessive heat! The Thermaltake enclosure is a bit pricey but IMHO the best and most reliable you can buy. I plan to purchase more of these!

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The case could be easier to get into, but other than that, it's a great external HDD box. I especially like the fan, which is very quiet and should keep the drive cool. I was so pleased with the first one, I bought a second and put another 1TB HDD in that so I can switch back and forth.

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I have purchased and outfitted several of these for myself, friends and family, all with good results. Installing SATA drives is a snap, with two plastic brackets with pins inserted into the mounting threads, and a screw on each side holding the brackets to the chassis. It does take some patience to put the U-shaped cover back on, as there are trim pieces/guides that don't line up on command. Getting the 4 holes to line up with the screw threads takes a little doing. The two features that, for me, best distinguish this enclosure from others are: the fan, which makes a huge difference in operating temperature; and using the power on/off switch is a lot more elegant than hot-swapping (even though, with eSATA, you can). The power/drive activity indicator on the front is not distracting, but some might find the blue light streaming out of the fan vent to be a bit much. I had one Max 4 DOA, which the nice folks replaced quickly and with no hassle.

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I had no problems. Everything works great!

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Very well made. when using ESATA connectivity the transfer speed is incredible. Keeps the HD nice and cool.

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Cools the drive quietly. Looks fine with internal blue led. It is large in size but good cooling negates this negative. I have four of these cases. No problems.

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This enclosure seems to work fine. It runs very quiet. I did have problems with the tiny screws to install the drive in the enclosure, and since My DVR can't reliably use the 1.5 TB hard drive, I'm going to have to do it again.

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I just bought my 5th Max 4. I started buying them about 1/2 a year ago and have yet to have a serious problem with them. I built a computer where all the drives are external eSATA and I switch out the drives allowing me to use the computer for different purposes from audio recording to Auto CAD. The first three enclosures I bought to house eSATA Velociraptor drives for recording, and I would not trust my drives to any other product I've seen. Be aware that some models of Velociraptors have connections that do not match up with these enclosures and therefore cannot be used. I bought the last enclosure to replace a 1TB NAS drive (which was not a Thermaltake product) where the enclosure that it was housed in did a terrible job of cooling the drive (drive and enclosure were sold to me as one piece). That drive would overheat after 15 minutes of heavy file transfers and lock up. All my Thermaltake enclosures keep the drives nice and cool no matter the usage.

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An excellent enclosure from Thermaltake that keeps my drive extremely cool. The fan is very silent! Perfect plugged with eSata, very high speed transfert, better than USB 2 et Firewire 800. I gave an 4 for quality because I had to withdraw the little PCB to insert a small washer between the PCB circuit and the case, all that because the enclosure wasn't aligned perfectly with the eSata connector, I was unable to plug it. The others connectors was OK. It was just one one side of the PCB. I excepted more from Thermaltake for this point... But an excellent product for a great price. It will keep your drive extremely cool and so will extend the life of your drive. Second point for the 4 stars, I have to return with an RMA the alimentation cable. The little box in the cord where is the transformer does a strange buzzing and very sharp sound. It's electronic, so electrical problems can happen to the best company...

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I would have gave this unit a higher mark in the quality if the power switch wasn't defective. When turning the unit on you have to try several times to get the HD to spin up. The cases fan works but the hd didn't. I figured out once I got it working again to just unplug it rather then turn if off and it fires up every time. Being this is used for my business on a daily basis I didn't return it for a replacement.

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The plastic side inserts could have been left out; they were tricky to reassemble. Other than that, I think the case is awesome. I love the light and the fan is nice and quite. I got it for my husband (whom is not a techie). He is going to Iraq and will store movies/music/videos on the drive. The fan should keep the drive nice and cool. I put a 1.5 TB drive in the case. I used the USB to transfer data, and it worked great with my desktop, and fast considering I installed a faster drive. But, there were NO hiccups. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone. I would buy this again.

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I bought the Max 4 enclosure last week. I am beyond impressed and satisfied with this unit. The installation of my 1TB Hitachi drive was a breeze and the max 4 keeps the drive extremely cool. The installation of the included eSATA plug was easy but for those who are not computer savvy just be sure to turn the SATA port on in your setup features during start up. My only issue really has nothing to do with the enclosure but instead the general technology of the eSATA. It seems there is a universal issue in some systems where audio and video files get choppy and/or skip during playback and the CPU spikes during use and it only happened with media files for me. I searched the net and I am not the only one with the issue. I switched to using the USB instead and everything works unbelievably well! I will buy more of these enclosures, many, many more!!!!!! *UPDATE* - Issue with SATA as previously reported is a combination of two things. First, make sure you have SATA II to get the

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This is the best i had diffrent kind and my harddrive ran so hot you could not pick up the case. But this one is great it keeps your hard drive very cool and i have a 1tb hd in it and it keeps it cool all the time

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This item is a nice piece of work! So far so good...I've recently opened and installed my Enclosure with my 1TB hardrive and it took a little time but I eventually made it work!!! And it works like a charm!!! Thank you Tigerdirect!!! You guys rock like always!!!

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I bought this case and paired it with a Hitachi 1TB SATA drive, and connected it to my PC via eSATA. It worked pretty well, but was less than perfect: Getting the case to close back up again properly was a chore - the edges of the two halves of the case fit together with a black ''rubber'' seal, but getting that seal to sit just right so you can get screws back in was way more trouble than it should have been. The case fan is indeed almost totally silent - the noise of the drive itself was much louder than the fan. Airflow through the case is also very good. The worrying part was that about 1/2 the time when I booted my PC, it didn't see the external drive at all. I'd switch-on the Thermaltake case, give it 30 seconds, then turn-on the PC, and it didn't see the external drive. After two weeks of this I moved the SATA drive inside my PC case, connected to the exact same SATA socket on the motherboard, and it's now seen 100% of the time on boot-up.

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Would not work as E Sata,the reason i bought it! Thermaltake very understanding, instant RMA.sill in transit

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This does NOT work with Western Digital WD3000GLFS VelociRaptor drives, but the Velociraptor is a special drive. I had no way to know without ordering and trying so maybe this will help someone else. The problem is either the VelociRaptor doesn't have the SATA and power connectors in the traditional place or that Thermaltake always counts on them to be in the traditional place. I had the same problem with the Black-X product. I had hoped this product would have cables allowing for a little tolerance like most hard drive enclosures. The connector in the MAX 4 is fixed in a certain position and of course so is the matching connector on the VelociRaptor.

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I bought 2 of these enclosures about 3 months ago. I am extremely satisfied with my purchace and I am planning to purchase another one within about a week. The enclosure not only keeps the drive cool but is very quite compare to others I have owned and given away. If you plan to purchase an enclosure then spend the extra money.