Antec Actively Cooled Hard Drive Enclosure

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GREAT way to make an External SATA disk or External RAID
Reviewer: Joe from Annapolis,MD on Dec 5, 2007
22 out of 23 found this review helpful

Sorry for the presentation - the comment system does not support even simple formatting like new paragpraphs

There are many.many products on the market for External USB disk drives but very few for Sata disks.

I spent a long time looking for a versatileway of makeing my Sata disks External and wanted one that would not allow the disk to fry itself with heat.
This is it.

If you are interested in building an external RAID, Here is a rather important thing you should know in case you did not.
You can NOTmake RAID's or Striped/Spanned Volumes in Windows if you use External USB disks since XP/VISTA do NOT support External media for that type of application.
Same thing is true with Firewire disks.
SAN is a different animal and could be considered BUT CableCard standard does not allow recording to SAN's


I wanted to make a 1.5 TB Sata RAID to hold the recordings for my Cable Card PC but I did not have room in the case to properly hold and cool 3 500 Gbyte disks(which I got GREAT deals on).

So, I got 3 ofthese Antec cases (when they were on sale for $39.99)

You can barely hear it running and it has a very clever cooling system.
I opened one after an extended benchmark and discovered that the disc was just above room temperature.

One thing you have to consider:Each case does expect you to dedicate a PCI slot cover to hold the Esata bracket.
I simply unscrewed the eSATA connectors from each of the 3 slot covers and let them dangle out the back of the open PCI slot.

I may use my dremel and cut the required 3 odd shaped holes in the back of the PC case and bolt the ESATA connectors to the PC case.


Summarry:
Pros: Inexpensive,quiet and excellent thermal way to make your Sata disks external
External Sata is the only supported External device in Vistafor RAID's

Cons: I wish the little blue led would blink when the disk is being accessed. It is merely an on/off indicator.

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Great performance
Reviewer: Tommer from Mesa, AZ on Jun 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I had been using a non-cooling external drive enclosure and my drive was getting very hot. Once I converted to the Antec enclosure there were no signs of heat. I had even dj'd an outdoor party in the Arizona heat and it still ran cool for 4 hours of non-stop drive access.

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Excellent
Reviewer: bradsh from grandville, mi on Jun 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The enclosure works as advertised and is well designed with a high build quality. Antec uses their now standard method of mounting hard drives, which is 4 screws in the bottom with a silicone layer in between the drive and the mount. The drive is therebyprotected from sudden shocks but is still entirely secure. Build quality is fantastic. I cannot hear the fan, it is nearly silent.

Drive simply worked when plugged in with USB.

Only one minus point for using an obnoxious blue LED. Manufacturers really need to stop using them as they are bright and annoying.

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