VANTEC NexStar2 NST-355UF Plastic 3.5" USB2.0 (type B)+ IEEE1394 External Enclosure

Pros: Works fine and seems compatible with ProTools. I have had 2 different drives in it with no troubles. I forgot to turn it off during a thunderstorm and a power glitch crashed the drive. The case still works fine with a new drive installed(Maxtor 300).

Cons: Be prepared to do a little soldering. As others have found, the power connection becomes intermittent. The power jack is poerly soldered to the PC board. Once I reflowed the solder joints, it has been solid.

Other Thoughts: Plastic case has kind of a cheap feel to it. You have to lean hard to get the screws tightened all the way.

Pros: nice design...

Cons: bought 2 of these and both had bad pcb's. the installed dvd burners stopped working after a few days. also, i tested it using several hard drives and they all failed to copy data. plastic casing doesn't do anything to cool down the drives either...

Pros: Worked great for over a year and half.

Cons: Not really a con just be careful when moving this around, I left the power plugged into the back and had it in my bag when I took it to a friends and now it only powers on when you adjust the powercord in the right place. I would buy it again just would be more careful. I'm gonna get the Nexstar3 for the eSata hookup.

Pros: I actually figured out how to get around the corruption of the drive when you're using firewire. When you're done transferring files and such, just turn off the enclosure by hitting the power button instead of dismounting it via Windows XP. Using this method I have not had a corrupted hard drive since.

Cons: The corruption of the hard drive if you dismount it using XPs thing.

Pros: It looks good, easy to assemble, speeds are decent

Cons: I, as well, lost data because of this enclosure. One day it simply began locking up as I was moving some files around (I use OS X) I thought the drive was dying, so I put it in a MacPro and it worked just fine, save for everything being corrupted. I was able to recover the data, but I'll never trust these enclosures again...

Pros: This is the best USB 2.0 box I've used to date, and I have used many.

Cons: I wouldn't mess with the firewire on this enclosure. Fried 2 of my drives within 2 months of using it on Firewire, could have been coincidence but I highly doubt it (for 2 drives?).

Other Thoughts: I recommend it only if you'll be using it as a usb 2 device only. Fast, quiet, does what it says, says what it does. Has outlived all of my other enclosures, some more expensive. Alas, use the firewire at your own risk - it totalled not 1, but 2 of my drives and I believe it's just a faulty chipset.

Pros: It just plain works. Firewire and USB both work flawlessly, have had two drives in it, a 120 and a 300 and both have worked great.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I really like that it has both USB and firewire, and seems decently solid. For an external backup drive and to transfer files quickly between PC's, I couldn't ask for a better alternative.

Pros: Relatively quiet. USB 2 and Firewire. Low price.

Cons: No cooling. Power connector is proprietary (i.e. must replace with a Vantec model if it breaks). HDD Activity light is basically pointless, since it's always on.

Other Thoughts: The power connector inside the unit broke, so now the only way it operates is with a piece of tape holding the cord in at a certain angle. Lucky for Vantec it outlived it's 1 year warranty. Up until now it was a decent case, but now I may look for something a little sturdier.

Pros: Easy to assemble? That's about it.

Cons: Absoultely useless product.

The Firewire controller on this case is defective. It has destroyed two hard drives Master File Allocation table. Both drives at this point have unrecoverable data.

If you buy this product, you can expect one thing; your data will be deleted. Enjoy!

Pros: External HDD shell...

Cons: I had a HDD burn up (smell heavy smoke) and thought it was the hdd. SO I put a 2nd drive in it and I lost the 2nd drive. RMA Dept were jerks. They accused me of lying and said they were being nice by replacing the product. They shipped my old hdd back in the new shell and I could smell the burnt smell through the new case.

Other Thoughts: Replacement model overheated a HDD as well.

IDE Cable broke into pieces.