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

Other products by Antec

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.1 x 3.4 inches ; 3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000NZVR3Q
• Item model number: MX-1
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank

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  #9 in	Electronics > Computers & Accessories > Computer Accessories > Drive Enclosures
  #17 in	Electronics > Accessories & Supplies > Microphones > Wired

• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 15, 2008

Product Description

Product Description

Keep your data safe and cool in Antec's MX-1 portable Hard Drive enclosure. Features a blower fan to keep your drive running cool, and allowing you to operate the enclosure continuously. Simply install your drive, connect it to your computer and start transferring your data at blazing speeds over USB2.0 or eSATA. There's not even any need to install drivers. The MX-1 is made with a special dual-layer design that reduces noise and is lightweight for easy transporting.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, cool, fast, October 31, 2007

By	Dr. Klamm (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

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.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good enclosure, but eSata is not sata, July 26, 2007

By	anonymous "anonymous" (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

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.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Power problems!, October 31, 2007

By	Blackadder (Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

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.