Customer Reviews

Antec MX-1 USB/e-SATA 3.5-Inch Hard Drive Enclosure

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Length:: 3:06 Mins

The video speaks for itself. Basically, I prefer this over my Thermaltake for one reason: The ease of swapping drives in and out of it when I need to. Right now it's sitting in my entertainment unit with my media PC, and it contains my entire life collection of stuff. It may not be the most attractive or the most durable. But if you need flexibility there really are no better out there. If you want something that's built like a tank and looks like a rock concert then get the Thermaltake N0012USU Max 4 Active Cooling 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 eSATA Hard Drive Enclosure instead.

UPDATE - 10/9/2011:

Yes, I still have this enclosure. I actually had forgotten about it until recently. I moved it from my entertainment unit to just below my iMac, and I had it persistently connected and powered on since the iMac's purchase in late 2010. I mentioned before that I had both this and the Thermaltake I referenced above, right...well, the Thermaltake bit the dust two weeks ago. Not specifically "Dying" per se, but it started making a very horrible noise. AS though something were contacting the fan repeatedly. Like a rattle but not a rattle. Even taking it apart didn't fix the issue. Fortunately the drive was not affected by this, but the noise was just unbearable.

The Antec, on the other hand, still chugs along without an issue. Had all sorts of dust on the inside of it, but otherwise solid and stable. No problems whatsoever. Considering the general build quality, color me impressed with this enclosure. I was not pleased to see that Amazon no longer stocks it; it truly is one-of-a-kind.

My house doesn't have the best air conditioning, so I've long been looking for a decent active-cooled hard drive enclosure. After reading a favorable review of the MX-1 at Silent PC Review, I decided to buy two of these enclosures (paired with two very quiet WD Caviar SE16 drives) to use for backup and music storage with my MacBook Pro. I'm quite pleased. The drives run cool and relatively quietly -- while they aren't silent, the hum of the fan tends to blend in to the ambient noise of my study. And if you use the eSATA interface, you'll find the performance to be equivalent to that of an internal drive, which is nothing short of spectacular if you've previously only used Firewire or USB2 drive enclosures.

The MX-1 enclosure isn't quite perfect. As the product photo makes clear, the enclosure is not particularly attractive; it reminds me, in fact, of a VHS tape rewinder, and it's almost as bulky. You'll probably want to tuck your enclosure away and out of plain view if looks matter to you. Also, the inclusion of a Firewire 400 interface would have made the enclosure more versatile and useful, particularly to Mac users, though it's hard to fault Antec for this omission when few PCs are equipped with Firewire ports. Finally, I would have preferred a slightly larger power switch, since you typically need to find the power switch by feel rather than by sight. Bear in mind that these are only quibbles; the MX-1 enclosure gets the important things right: cooling, noise, and performance.

A note on assembly: one of the screws can be slightly tricky to position, and it helps to have a pair of screw-holding tweezers when you're putting this together. In general, however, assembly is not bad.

This enclosure works great with the USB cable. If you have an eSata port on the back of your computer (directly on the motherboard) it works even faster. But if you hope to use the included eSata back-panel bracket that plugs into a regular sata port in your motherboard, be aware that sata is not eSata, and this *will not work* with some chipsets. In particular, it doesn't work with the nForce4 Ultra chipset or the Sil 3114 that are found on a Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 motherboard. It seems to depend on whether the timings of your motherboard sata ports happen to fall within the timing specs for eSata --- this can happen, but it is not guaranteed.

Pros: Built in fan. eSATA.
Cons: Bad power connector design. Only one LED, poorly placed.
My main complaint is the power connector: The end of the lead from the transformer brick has a round DIN connector (similar to S-video) that plugs into the drive enclosure. This is VERY unsecure and works lose or falls out at the slightest movement of the case or cable. I tried to tape it to the case using electrical tape. When that didn't hold up I resorted to mashing the male plug end with pliers to make it grip & stay in a bit better! But it is still not very good and I have to be careful not to bump it lose.
I have a 750Gb Seagate drive inside and use it hooked up to a series 3 TiVo. The power connector working lose has caused several sudden HD power-downs resulting in some lost video, reboots and video glitches on the TiVo.
Secondly, the single blue LED is poorly visible because of where it is positioned. That one LED doubles as power and HD access (it flickers when accessing the drive) - would have been better to have 2 separate LEDs.
All else seems to work OK. The fan is quiet enough. I found it easy to install the HD even though the instructions were not perfect. A decent eSATA cable is provided (with correct connector length; not too short). Also included is an eSATA connection panel for installation in the back of your PC expansion ports (connects by an internal cable to a motherboard SATA port) - I've installed this and it works fine.

I've had one of these for almost a month and it seems to work well. I recently bought another for my GF and hers works well too. Mine has had a WD 320G SATA2 drive installed, and hers has a 640G AAKS drive. Mine now has a WD 640G Black (AALS) drive which works equally well.

- For me everything fit well together and nothing was loose or rattling/noisy.

- I've had no problems with connectivity or speed with any drive I've installed in this case so far, though eSATA is more of a pain to deal with than USB. I have only used relatively recent SATA drives from Western Digital in this unit, FWIW.

- The fans are NOT very noisy on the units I received: If you get one that's too noisy for you, send it back to Amazon! If your drive is quiet, you'll hardly notice noise from this thing at all. However, all hard drives create vibration noise, and that noise can be transmitted through a flat solid surface like your desk. I keep my external drives either on the floor or sitting on top of my PC - the external drives I have all make too much noise (for me) while sitting on the desk. I have super-ultra-bionic hearing, though...

- The case IS PLASTIC, covered on top and bottom with a thin veneer of dark-anodized aluminum that seems to soak up debris from anything that touches it (finger oils, etc), but it cleans well with eyeglass cleaner and a clean towel.

- External hard drives like this take some work to install the FIRST time, and may need to be formatted once they're assembled. Assembly is easy enough, but if you think the instructions suck (and they do) and you haven't done this before, here's how you do it:

ASSEMBLY
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0) First off, be aware of static electricity - especially in Winter - and "ground" yourself if possible before you start work. You can easily damage something electronic with so little static electricity that you won't even feel it.

1) Turn the hard drive case upside down and remove the long screw on the bottom-front of the unit. The front of the unit has the Antec logo. ;)

2) Turn the unit back over and slide the TOP cover towards the FRONT of the unit and pull the cover up and off.

3) Inside the unit is a tray that holds the hard drive, and this tray also holds the electronics the hard drive connects to. Remove the two slightly off-CENTER screws on either side of the hard drive tray, then slide the tray to the FRONT. (Ignore the two screws at the BACK of the unit). Do NOT touch anything electronic if you can help it.

4) If you think you can do it carefully enough, pull out the plastic plug with the BLUE/WHITE wires (which power the hard drive activity light) - this will allow you to completely detach the hard drive tray from the case. It's not absolutely necessary, but it makes things easier. It takes some elbow grease, but don't force it. Do NOT pull the wires to disconnect the white plug.

5) Grab your SATA hard drive by the SIDES and place it on the tray, then carefully slide the drive into the SATA power/data connector until it's firmly in place.

6) Now carefully hold the drive and tray together and turn them over. Place a screw provided into each of 4 white rubber bushings, then tighten them all until they are ALMOST completely tight. Now tighten each screw down completely until they stop moving. This helps make sure you don't over-tighten any one screw and break something.

7) Now turn the tray over and place it into the case bottom, then slide the tray towards the BACK until everything lines up (you'll know when).

8) The two screws that hold the tray in place are tricky to re-install: I have big hands, so I just turned the entire unit over, placed a screw in the screwdriver, and pushed the screws into their place. For folks not endowed with XXL hands, a trick I use is to put a very little bit of scotch tape around the screw and screwdriver together, then install the screw a little, peel the tape off, then complete the job. Tighten the two screws until they don't move anymore.

9) Put the top cover back on and slide it BACK to lock it into place. Turn the unit over and put the one long screw back in and tighten it down.

10) Now plug your external drive power in (the flat side of the power connector goes UP into the unit if it's flat and horizontal). Turn the drive on and wait a few seconds. Now plug the USB connector into your PC and wait a minute until it's recognized. If the drive is new, you might have to format it - see below.

FORMATTING:
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11) If you're using WinXP, AND your drive is brand new and never been used, this is for you. Make sure the new external drive is plugged in, powered up, and connected to your PC. Now RIGHT-CLICK on the MY COMPUTER icon on your desktop, and select MANAGE from the menu.

12) The Computer Management window will pop up. Click on STORAGE, then click on DISK MANAGEMENT. A list of drives will appear in the right-hand window pane.

13) You SHOULD now receive a pop-up window that wants you to initialize a newly recognized drive. Click OKAY or yes, twice. Do NOT click on a check box to create a "virtual" drive.

14) In the last window you receive, you'll see a choice to determine which "format" you want the drive to be in: Leave your choice at (or change it to) "NTFS". You can change the name "New Volume" to almost anything you like - this is the name your hard drive will have when it shows up in Windows Explorer/My Computer.

15) Check the box that says "Quick format" and click OK (or Finish). After a minute or two your new hard drive should be ready to use.

Tnis enclosure does both esata and USB. The USB is a lot slower than the esata, the latter providing close to internal drive speeds.

The big peeve with this one is assembling it. First you have to take it apart...why they put it all together when the first thing you need to do is disassemble it is a mystery. Just send it out unassembled and save some manufacturing cost AND some user assembly time!

One screw allows the top to slide off, then two screws allow the drive mounting plate to slide out. You're advised by the directions to remove the two power plugs, one for the fan and one for the LED. I did that with great difficulty with the first MX-1 I put together, only to find that its completely unnecessary. You can just flip the tray over with the two wires still attached and theres no problem at all mounting the drive. A real hassle saver. Plus if you're an idiot like I was, you reverse the connections and the voltages on them arent the same. When you do that, the 12v for the fan burns out the LED on the front panel, and the 1.5v for the led doesnt spin the fan. Doh!

Once re-reversed, the fan does spin up, but your LED is toast. The good news is that if you arent sure which wire goes to what, look at the circuit board next to the two plugs. FAN and LED are printed on the board and tracing the wires to the fan and led front panel are pretty easy.

The two screws that hold the mounting plate in there, as others have noted, are a pain. A typical "whoever designed this wasnt thinking, and never put one togther" setup. The two screws are about an inch down in the case with barely enough room between the side of the case and the side of the drive tray to stick a screwdriver.

I've done it three ways: 1) small magnetic screwdriver, 2) grabbed the screw with a pair of needlenose, stuck it in there and then used a screwdriver to tighten, and 3) held a screwdriver point up, put the screw on it, turned the MX-1 upside down (holding the drive in place with my thumb) and slide the screw/screwdriver UP into the holes. #3 is how I've been doing it.

I noticed on one that after a day of use the fan starts making a whirry/clicky noise you can hear within a couple of feet of it, but in a cabinet its silent. Most of the other ones were totally silent.

The little blue led is mounted on the underside of a ridge on the front panel and casts its light down, so its visible but you dont have the big flashing blue light in the face that some of the other external drives give you.

I bought this enclosure with a 750GB Seagate drive. This is an excellent buy, but two things I didn't like: 1) The installation is not easy, the manual wasn't correct. It said I have to remove two plugs while I needed to remove just one. Putting back the plug is not simple. There are a lot of screws to remove and put back. 2) The led is hidden on the bottom of the front panel. I wish they would move to the front.
Other than those things I like the eSata interface and the embeded cooling.

This is my second external enclosure and this one is the better of the two. It has a very attractive design and it is very easy to install the drive. Most importantly, the drive is cool on the inside because of the fan that is built in. The drive also runs very quiet. Just be mindful that you can't install a noisy hard drive and expect the enclosure to suppress all or most of the noise. It takes two to run a cool and quiet drive.

I've purchased my second MX-1 enclosure to use with a Tivo series 3 for storage expansion. It's replacing a cheaper enclosure that caused my Tivo to reboot all the time.

It is quiet enough that I have one in the bedroom and I don't have any noise issues with it. It is rather large but maybe that helps with air flow and cooling the hard drive.

I'm giving it four stars due to the difficulty of replacing a couple screws along each side of the hard drive that others have mentioned. They are small screws and you either have to squeeze your fingers in there which is a bit painful or use another tool to hold it.

It's a bit pricey for being just an enclosure but it's quiet and has been more reliable for me than a cheaper unit. I like that there is just a small blue LED in the front. It doesn't interfere with watching TV in a dark room. If you are looking for a good enclosure to use with a Tivo this is the one.

I just wrote a long review on New Egg, as I have two of the MX-1 units. I bought them at the same time, and loved how they were fan cooled. A hard drive (green drives were not out quite yet) in a fanless enclosure means a much SHORTER LIFE for that drive.

I bought 2 of these and initially the only thing I thought was terrible was the power plug. It looks like a Svideo plug, and is just as lousy a connection. It will fall out as there is almost no friction holding it in. There certainly is nothing in the design, like a tab or clip etc. PLUS it is propriatary, so if you misplace/loose the power supply, plan on tossing the MX-1 as well.

OK, so other than having to be carefull of the power plug, I was quite happy. USB port or eSATA port worked great on both units, plus drives that would get too hot in a 'fanless' enclosure (7200RPM) were now fine and I did NOT have to worry about them overheating.

I used these to add a 'bunch' of space to my HTPC (home theater PC). I left them on all the time and life was great for 6 months. At almost the same time I heard an awful racket coming from the MX-1 units. I was horrified and worried about the hard drives. After looking I realised it was the fact that Antec, Maker of normally GREAT fans, had used a super CHEAP 10 cent fan in the MX-1. NOT ONLY is it a short lived 'sleeve' bearing fan, but it is NOT REPLACEABLE with a 'standard' fan. The fan is part of the plate that sits inside and there is NO SPACE for a 60x60mm or 80x80 fan instead becasue of the design.

I would gladly PAY for an upgraded fan (like dual ball bearing etc) to make the life of my 2 MX-1 units last, but I doubt Antec is making a better fan.

I am stunned Antec would 'cheap out' on this enclosure's fan, it is NOT the most inexpensive eSATA external case by a long shot. It retails for DOUBLE of what 'no name' units go for. If I could return the two units I have for the fifty five bucks each I paid, I would instantly. If EVER I get more external cases I will ensure they use a standard fan that can be replaced (most likely a slim 80x80, like a Zalman).

If these are ONLY used occasionally (turned off when not being actively used), the 6 months of fan life duration may last a user years, and then that person would ONLY have to deal with the loose (poor design) power plug issue... Antec makes great PC cases. Antec makes normally great PC accessories (this is an example of terrible), and Antec USED TO make great PC power supplies. I used to always chose and suggest Antec for power supplies, but had such a large amount of Antec power supplies die in the last few years I have 'switched brands'.

Bestec, OEM supplier of HP/Compaq power supplies (and possibly other PC makers) is the other brand I find I replace quite often now. So, I now avoid Antec power supplies and am replacing Bestec often...