Customer Reviews

StarTech.com 2.5-Inch Silver USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure for SATA HDD (SAT2510U2) - Silver

5 star:		(65)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I purchased this to recover the data off a 2.5" SATA hard drive that used to live inside my Toshiba Satellite laptop that went belly up shortly after its warranty expired. I done a complete virus scan and recovered about 100 GB so far with absolutely no problems and decent USB 2.0 speed.

The enclosure is powered by USB as well, which works fine. Two USB dongles are actually on the cable (for extra power), which is what I use and I've had no problems up to this point.

The package includes a little baggy with the tiniest screwdriver I've ever seen. Be careful when you open it, because it contains two even more miniscule screws, used for securing the hard drive once you insert it into the enclosure.

I promptly dumped mine on the carpet and spent a good 10 minutes looking for them. Very hard on the eyes...

PRO:
- Decent data transfer rate -- about 20 megabyte sustained with my drive
- Comes with a carrying sleeve
- Comes with the only tool you need to assemble the enclosure - a tiny eyeglass screwdriver

CON:
- Misreports current usage - use caution to avoid damaging your PC
- Microscopic "eyeglass" screws.

SUMMARY
This should have been tool-free, or used larger screws on the back. Assembling it is a bit of a pain, as the screws are about the size of a pinhead. Luckily it comes with a third spare screw.

The fact that it misreports current use is dangerous. It only reports half the current that would be used by a 5400RPM drive in the enclosure on the assumption that the power-only connector will be swallowing half the current load. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security if you find that you can operate with just one USB plug, especially if using a high current draw 7200RPM drive. Insert both plugs, inserting the power-only end plug first. USB controllers shut down devices if current draw is high enough to damage the controller - this won't work if the controller is getting bad information.

Note that - as with most USB enclosures - the controller does not understand hard drive passwords. If you're repurposing an old laptop drive, be sure to clear the hard drive password in the laptop's BIOS before moving it to the enclosure. If you forget this step, you'll get mysterious CRC failure errors when trying to initialize the drive.

I used one of these to enclose the 60GB disk that I took out of my PS3 after I upgraded it to 320GB. Installation consists on pushing the disk in and screwing 2 little screws using the little screwdriver provided. It's all done in less than 5 minutes.

It connects through an USB wire which powers the HDD. Included.

End of story.

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Jan 2010 update

Almost 1.5 year later, I am still happy with my purchase. My HDD is still working inside its enclosure and I've never had a problem. I am using this disc to store data that I only rarely access - backups of photos, tax documents and so on - but I'm happy to know that they are in safe and that I can access my data quickly and easily by simply plugging in the disk.

P.S. - you can get the very much same thing minus the brand name for a lot less these days.

Just before the new year I upgraded my harddrive from the standard MacBook Pro version of 80GB/ 5400 to 160GB/ 7200 rpm drive. So, now I've been sitting on Apple-issued harddrive for 3 months now.

I bought the enclosure case after a friend told me I could use it as a spare harddrive. I made a mistake and bought the "2.5" IDE"- which is for the older versions of Mac and PC laptops. When I finally received this StarTech 2.5" SATA-- it was approximately 45 seconds from the moment I snapped in the harddrive to the enclosure case cover and tighten those two (2) minuscule screws.

Works perfectly.

Just a reminder-- make sure you know the kind of harddrive you have and purchase with confidence. The product works well.

I finally got this to work. Replaced my PS3 60GB HDD with a WD Scorpio Blue 320GB HDD. Put the old 60GB in this enclosure - no problem. At first my pc (Windows XP) did not see the HDD. Looking in "My Computer" - nada. Finally figured it out. Unfortunately you can't just put a drive in the case, plug it in and it will work. You will need to initialize and format the drive before it will show up in "My Computer" or "Windows explorer." How do you format this hard drive in XP?

Luckily, Windows XP has a "New Partition Wizard" which you'll be able
to navigate your way through.

To access the wizard:

Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management
Click on the small section that says "Unknown" or "Not Initialized".
Right click and select "Initialize Disk" then right click on the right
portion of the next window and select "New Partition" to start the New
Partition Wizard.

Select "Primary Partition" and continue with the wizard.

Then you format it, which will take some time (mine took around 30 minutes). You can format it in Disk Management or you can find the disk in "My Computer" and format it there (when you click on the disk there you will get a prompt to format).

I now have another portable HDD for storage and transfering files from pc to pc. Yes, like everyone says the screws are tiny, but were no problem at all for me.

Hope this helps.

Got this enclosure today to put my old 60G MacBook HD to use and it's a great enclosure. A couple things to note: First, ANY 2.5" SATA drive WILL fit in this enclosure. Those reviewers complaining that the enclosure is too small have not removed the extra metal plate covering the back of the HD, generally attached with a small screw at each corner. Once this plate is removed, the drive fits securely in the enclosure. Second, I was a little concerned about this enclosure requiring two USB ports to function. However, I'm happy to report that both on my MacBook and my iMac G5, the drive functions just fine using only one USB port. Hope this information helps!

works fine for me, and the price is right. Fit and finish are decent, and the product comes with a sort of slipcase, if you're into that sort of thing

I bought this for a spare SATA 2.5" drive I had laying around. Putting the drive in was a breeze though I did have some problems putting the securing screws in. I don't know if the drive was not lined-up properly but I had to force the screws in (they went in of course). It DOES come with the world's tiniest screwdriver...haha.

Also, most compact external drives I've used require you to plug into 2 USB ports (one for data transmission and one for power) but I only plugged this into one USB port....I formatted the drive and copied data onto it.

I purchased this product to transfer files from my wife's failed PC to her new MacBook. Process worked great and I was able to recover all of her files from her old hard drive , using the hard drive enclosure I purchased. I highly reccomend the product to anyone needs to able to do the same."

After using it for a few hours, the drive icon disappeared from my desktop. After some testing, I found that my left-side USB port was not working for the drive or any other device. I moved the drive to my right-side USB port, and the same pattern occurred - the USB port ceased working. Reboot did not solve the issue. Running Apple Hardware Test showed no problems, but after running it, the ports began working again. I am now afraid to plug this directly into my computer again, and it needs more power than my USB hub can deliver - it's essentially of no use to me at this time.