Apricorn EZ-Bus DT Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Drive Case ( EZ-BUS-DT-KIT )

by Apricorn

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 8 x 2 inches ; 2.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000184C1Y
• Item model number: EZ-BUS-DT-KIT
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

EZ Bus Desktop (DT) is the ultimate hard drive backup system. Its ultra-cool fan keeps the enclosure at optimal temperatures which will extend the life of your hard drive and data. The sleek aluminum enclosure operates in horizontal and vertical configurations.

Engineered for desktop or laptop applications, EZ Bus DT comes with everything that you need, including USB cable, and EZ Gig II backup software.

With the ability to add today's largest drives, you'll have plenty of space to not only backup your entire system, but for additional storage of all of your digital photographs, emails, music and video files.

Regardless of whether you use a notebook or a desktop PC, or MAC, EZ Bus DT is the ideal hard drive to add additional capacity to your system. Simply plug EZ Bus DT into a USB port and you've instantly increased the storage capabilities of the computer.

EZ Gig II Backup and Disaster Recovery Utility for Windows, is one of the most powerful yet easy to use backup utilities available. EZ Gig II consists of two separate utilities, Clone EZ and Image EZ on one disk. Clone EZ is ideal for users who require an exact bootable clone of their hard drive. A cloned copy is perfect for disaster recovery backup, or a hard drive upgrade. Image EZ is for users who desire a compressed image of their entire hard drive (or partition). Since Image EZ compresses its backup, users have enough space to keep backups from multiple dates or multiple computers.

Box Contents:

• EZ Bus DT Hard Drive Enclosure (no hard drive included)
• USB Cable
• Power Cable
• EZ Gig II Backup and Disaster Recovery Utility for Windows

Product Description

MODEL- EZ-BUS-DT-KIT VENDOR- APRICORN FEATURES- EZ Bus DT Kit (Requires a hard drive not included) HI-Speed USB 2.0 Backup & External Storage System - 3.5". EZ Bus Desktop (DT) is the ultimate hard drive backup system. Its ultra-cool fan keeps the enclosure at optimal temperatures which will extend the life of your hard drive and data. The sleek aluminum enclosure operates in horizontal and vertical configurations. Engineered for desktop or laptop applications EZ Bus DT comes with everything that you need including USB cable and EZ Gig II backup software. With storage capacities up to 250GB you will have plenty of space to not only backup your entire system but for additional storage of all of your digital photographs emails music and video files. Regardless of whether you use a notebook or a desktop PC or MAC EZ Bus DT is the ideal hard drive to add additional capacity to your system. Simply plug EZ Bus DT into a USB port and you have instantly increased the storage capabilities of the computer. EZ Gig II Backup and Disaster Recovery Utility for Windows is one of the most powerful yet easy to use backup utilities available. EZ Gig II consists of two separate utilities Clone EZ and Image EZ on one disk. Clone EZ is ideal for users who require an exact bootable clone of their hard drive. A cloned copy is perfect for disaster recovery backup or a hard drive upgrade. Image EZ is for users who desire a compressed image of their entire hard drive (or partition). Since Image EZ compresses its backup users have enough space to keep backups from multiple dates or multiple computers. Includes EZ Bus DT Hard Drive Enclosure (no hard drive included) USB Cable Power Cable EZ Gig II Backup and Disaster Recovery Utility for Windows. -- SPECIFICATIONs ------------------------------------INTERFACE/BUS- USB 2.0TRANSFER RATE- up to 480MbpsREQUIREMENTS - Pentium CPU 32MBs RAM USB CD Windows 98SE ME 2000 XP Mac OS 8.6 and laterAPPROVALS - FCC UL CEPOWER- DC Output: =5V/2A +12V/2ASIZE -

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product, Outstanding Support, August 30, 2005

By 

R. N. French (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apricorn EZ-Bus DT Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Drive Case ( EZ-BUS-DT-KIT ) (Personal Computers)

This product excels for several reasons - the design and build quality are high, the included software is excellent and really delivers, and the company goes the extra mile in technical support.

Buying an external drive like this without the drive is an excellent way of handling a hard drive upgrade for your computer (put the new drive in the external drive case, clone your old drive over, and switch the old and the new). The included software is specifically designed to make this fast and easy. Even if you just want an external drive for backups, a kit is the way to go since you'll save money, and can select a high performance IDE drive to install. Most preassembled externals come with a fairly low end, slower drives of whatever capacity you're buying. And if the drive fails, or you want a larger one, it's very easy to pop the cover and change the drive out.

As to the tech support, I bought this unit as an easy way of upgrading my primary internal drive to a larger one. In the process of cloning my old drive over to the new one, I discovered that my old drive had read errors and was actually in the process of failing. When I called Apricorn tech support, they were extremely helpful - they pointed me towards diagnostic software than helped me come up with a work around that allowed me to save all of my data and still make migrate everything over without having to reinstall XP and all of my software. They did this even though my problem actually had nothing to do with their product. The software also lets you make compressed image backups that your can mount as logical drives and retrieve individual files or directories from - a very handy backup solution, and much faster than a file level backup.

Companies like this deserve your business and will actually help you solve problems.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works fine, no thanks to Apricorn, September 30, 2005

By 

R. Bates (Cape Cod, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apricorn EZ-Bus DT Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Drive Case ( EZ-BUS-DT-KIT ) (Personal Computers)

I had to send one of these back because the jumper setting for the hard drive as set forth in the manual did not work on my computer, nor was this subject touched in several discussions with customer service.
Although the manual says the drive should be set to master, Windows XP would not load the drivers for this enclosure unless I set the drive to cable select.
No explanation for this has been given me.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ichiban! (number #1), September 23, 2006

By 

Yoshiro Aoki (Vancouver, BC / Osaka-Kobe, JP) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apricorn EZ-Bus DT Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Drive Case ( EZ-BUS-DT-KIT ) (Personal Computers)

In my opinion, this product represents the pinnacle of external single storage technology. Other manufacturers designs seem like afterthoughts when compared to this device. I had ordered the USB model but, due to a since-resolved advertising error, was shipped the SATA version. I couldn't be happier, and bought the USB model in addition.

A few examples are in order: take the Adaptec aluminum USB enclosures (by the way, I have nothing but good things to say about Adaptec I/O cards), with their narrow base plate and rear-mounted power switch. These fan-less contraptions are a pain to use, and are quite hot to the touch during operation as your harddrive bakes inside them. The external case is unstable within its mounting foot, and so flops around. Even worse are the essentially same Adaptec-like copycat designs using a plastic rather than aluminum case. These are nothing more than drive ovens as the plastic acts as an insulator whereas at least the real Adaptec case's aluminum can act as a heat sink. Then there are the Maxtor USB cases with no power switch whatsoever. External drive cases without a power switch or a power switch thats hard to reach is especially a recipe for disaster in a multi-boot multi-operating system environment; someone booting to Windows XP from Linux may see the external drive as available space and, without thinking twice about it, assimilate it into the Windows environment. Bye bye, several months of Linux system backups.

The EZ-Bus family of single external drive cases offers an alternative to these other systems and resolves their many shortcomings. With its stable base, front-mounted power switch, integral fan unit, and stylish looks its the perfect external drive solution for the most discriminating processing environments.

As for that SATA box, I purchased a SATA-I interface card for my system just to accomodate it, along with a SATA drive. The combo has never once given me a problem, and its running on a dual boot Windows XP Pro SP2 and Windows 2000 Advanced Server machine. No problem either platform. Absolutely a 5-star peripheral.