Customer Reviews

Sabrent 5.25 Inch and 3.5 Inch USB 2.0 Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure (ECS-U35K)

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

For the price, this product does the job. The instructions were a little poor. For example, they state to set the drive jumper to "master". Well, I did that and it did not work. I really had to set the jumper to "single". After I got that figured out, it was easy to fit into the enclosure. They even included a screw driver and screws in the box. I didn't need anything. That was a nice surprise. After connecting to my USB (Win XP), it was detected and I could access all of my stored files.

I have several hard drives in a box leftover from years of upgrades (a pack rat of sorts). I am considering getting several of these enclosures for these old hard drives, labeling them, and just connecting as the need arises.

I must get a Ph.D in engineering because guess what... it works for me!.

The claims by reviewers below are risible.

#1. "No instructions". "I"m left guessing how to open it". Can you say "screwdriver"?. Sheesh, remove screws, open the box, plug the IDE drive to the IDE cable, power connector into the drive. Place screws, end of story!

#2. "No drivers on MacOS". Any OS which supports "USB Mass storage" devices will work. Gee, guess what... you have to FORMAT the drive before it can be seen by the OS. Jumper settings are also an issue. Any drive put into a USB enclosure must be set as MASTER. Anyone who has ever dealt with USB enclosures know that... except the reviewers below...

#3. "It is not shock absorbant". This is ridiculous!. What do you expect for $18 for Chrissakes!.

This device works as intended and is a great deal. If you're technically challenged or suffer from panic disorders and can't think rationally, avoid. You're better off paying $250 to Maxtor for a pre-assembled USB hard drive.

Tested with both WinXP SP2 and Linux

I admit that i'm a little bit of a geek, so this may not be for people with no computer background. And I'll admit, it took me a while to figure out how to get the stupid thing open (the other reviewer who mentioned the screwdriver is wrong, you dont need one, you just need to push hard on the two buttons under the slide-out covers of the case). And it would've been nice to have a little more docs.


That said, I LOVE the thing. No doubt, I'll be getting another. It is fast, it is clean, it is solid. Having the ability to get some use out of my old hard drives is really cool -- and for $18, I can't beat it.

I got this item from EBay a few days ago to replace a CP Technologies Enclosure that was broken. I initially had some issues with it and I even feared that it had fried a couple of my old HDs. After working with it all night, I gave up and was planning to go to the store the next day to get another CP Technologies enclosure that was more expensive, but my past experience with it showed that it worked flawlessly.

I contacted the EBay seller and she gave me instructions to get it working properly, the main thing that I failed to do was that I had to set the HD to MASTER and according to the seller she said I may have to wait 60 seconds until the drive is fully spinning BEFORE plugging it in to the USB port. With the CP Technologies drive, it did not matter what the jumper setting was or how long the drive was spinning, so that was a mistake on my part as I assumed this enclosure would be the same way. After I followed her instructions, the enclosure worked properly, and better yet the drives that I feared were ruined were fine. The only thing that I occasionally forget is to set the jumper to MASTER, or otherwise the drive wouldn't work. Others may find that they have to play around with the jumper settings to get one that works for them.

For the cheap price this enclosure is worth every penny. I still think the CP Technologies one is better, but you can't beat the price that this one is offered at. If you want a cheap solution this is the way to go.

The first one I bought was defective -- the internal ribbon connecting cable had a tear in it. The replacement works fine but the power outlet didn't line up with the hole where the cord goes. And when I gave the cord a little extra push the connector snapped (of course). The unit still powers up but the connector is loose. Aside from that my PC detected it automatically with no problem. So it does what it's supposed to do, it's just not very rugged (despite the metal case). I wouldn't advise taking it on the road -- just stick a drive into it (carefully!) plug it into your desktop PC and don't mess with it.

I bought this so that I could rescue information from my old computer, which had broken beyond repair, and was able to save all of my files and music. This purchase was well worth it, and now in addition to having my files on my new computer I have all my music backed up on my old hard drive, which is accessible thanks to this enclosure. A note: I know that USB things are supposed to be set to "master," and the instructions do state this; but, like some other reviewers, mine did not at all work on the master setting- the driver would not install even with multiple attempts. I set it to "CS" as another reviewer had said and the driver installed and the hard drive was ready to go; it then worked just as it should. Only problem with the enclosure itself was that the screw holes that are meant to hold the hard drive in place inside the enclosure did not line up with the screw holes on my actual hard drive, so I wasn't able to secure it inside. However, this didn't affect the function, and I don't need to take the hard drive anywhere or use it frequently, so it's not a problem.

This is a good quality, extruded aluminum drive enclosure. If you have ever installed a hard drive in a computer before, it should take no more than 5 or 6 minutes to assemble this. There may have been installation instructions, but they went unread -- it's pretty intuitive.

Windows XP automatically detected and configured the new drive as soon as it was plugged in. Like any new hard drive, don't forget to go into go into Disk Manglement and format the drive before trying to save data to the new disk.

The external drive has been in use for about 5 months now and has performed flawlessly. And the fact that this is a USB 2.0 device means that the throughput is pretty decent.

I'd buy another one.

Bought 3 of these for $16 each. The fit is tight. Difficult getting the end cap on but once its on they have all worked fine. If you like to swap hard drives in and out of cases this isn't a good one as the end cap has two tabs with a bump that you press down and fits in the hole un the case to secure - as I said the fit is tight and it takes some pressure and patience. Once installed they work fine - they don't run hot. For under $20 it's a good buy.

My laptop harddrive recently died, about 6 months before my PhD Dissertation Defense. Luckily I had time to back the computer up onto about 20 CD's (it was a chore). I learned about enclosures then, when a friend let me borrow his to access my old harddrive and recover anything that I possibly missed. So I bought the enclosure in this review and drag and drop my whole hard drive on it about twice a week. This enclosue is fast, I've never had any problems with reliability, it holds a large harddrive which is relativly cheap per megabyte compared with a laptop hardrive. Finally I like this one because it has a metal case.

I've had no problems with this harddrive enclosure. My drive fit perfectly, and it's been working great ever since. Juding by some of the other reviews, I guess some people like to swap harddrives often with the one in the enclosure. My recommendation for that is to buy a simple IDE to USB adapter and a 115 volt hard drive power adapter. Otherwise, this one should do the trick!