Rosewill METAS Rigid Aluminum Body and ABS plastic top cover 3.5" Black / Silver USB3.0 & eSATA External Enclosure

Pros: esata
fan
easy install

Cons: Every backup image I run has errors when using this external. Took the hard drive out, put it in another enclosure I have, and the backups complete fine.

Other Thoughts: Buy a WD or Seagate external with a longer warranty and better reliability.

I have purchased other Rosewill products, but this enclosure is just not reliable. I have two of them and they are BOTH problematic. The other one died after a few weeks.

Pros: Has fan to cool hard drive. Fan speed adjustable to low noise level, it appears the hard drive itself is noisier than the fan at low speed. Enclosure looks fairly good, it doesn't look out of place on my desk. Operation with e-sata works fine. Windows 7 Pro and Ubuntu 12.04 are functional. I am using a 3TB Toshiba disk.

Cons: USB 3 connection is not consistently recognized. I tried it with 2 PCs, Windows 7 Pro and Ubuntu 12.04. It recognizes a 2105 device, but the disk is not always useable.

With e-sata the blue light is permanently on, not flashing when disk is doing I/O (with USB, when it works, the blue LED flashes when there is disk activity).

Considering the price of the unit, a RMA is not cost effective. In particular since e-sata is working satisfactorily.

Pros: Cooling fan
eSATA (aka very fast)
3 TB support under Linux (CentOS 5.9)
Easy to change the drives

Cons: Case is a tad on the flimsy side.

Other Thoughts: For 3 TB volumes, you have to use a GPT (GUID partition table). Under Linux, this means gdisk and not fdisk.

Pros: The fact that its USB 3.0 and eSata alone are great selling points. And for the price, you can buy this and a fast drive and save a bundle as oppose to buying an external drive

Cons: Seems when you put your computer to sleep it doesn't find the drive right away when you wake your computer up, this can be a deal breaker for some for sure.

Switching drives is cumbersome since you have to screw the plate to your hard drive and unscrewed it if you want to swap for another one. If you are constantly switching drives it might not be right for you.

Other Thoughts: The fan is not as loud as others have mentioned and there is a way to reduce the noise in the back so I am not sure whats the issue. I am definitely buying few more of these once

Pros: Attractive. Solid feel.

Cons: Is not recognized when you reboot. You must flip the switch on the unit making this unsuitable for unattended backups.

Other Thoughts: Don't know why it happens but when you reboot the blue light goes off and the device does not show up on Windows. You have to flip the power switch off and then back on and everything works normally.

Pros: Easy installation. eSata II speed ok, though eSata III would have been nicer. Fan is quiet at lowest settings and keeps drive well cooled.

Cons: USB 3.0 speed is abysmal! Could only get 48 MB/s using a WD 2 TB Sata III drive. Tried all the USB 3.0 ports on my new build and all about the same speed. Was hoping to get much better speed using USB 3.0. Will have to use eSata port instead of USB. Also, the activity ligh flashes during data transfer when using USB connection, but stays solid when using eSata. Not a big minus but wondering if this is a defect.

Other Thoughts: I used the drive in this enclosure for archiving data so it is not constantly on but only a few times a week when transferring data, so the cheap bracket clips wont be a problem since I will leave the same drive in the case and not be swapping out. But I can see how they can easily break if great care is not used. These should have been metal! Not considering slow USB speed, overall just ok.

Pros: Transfers large files pretty quickly - slick appearance

Cons: annoyingly noisy fan - very loud - cheap construction - low attention to details - occasionally loses connection to computer (fails on save)

Other Thoughts: I've owned a number of drive housings and my favorite one wasn't available and I wanted one with a fan. Purchased this one as alternative to that favorite and it's so noisy and inconsistent I'd have to say it's trash.

Pros: Looks really slick, has nice features. Fan would be pretty nice (except see cons). USB 3.0 works well. Pretty blue light. Nice mesh.

Cons: So on the first unit, my fan died after 24 hours. RMA'd it back to Newegg without a problem. On the second unit, everything seems to be working, but the fan has an annoying clicking/crepitating (look it up) sound that for the life of me I can't figure out. Must be the bearings? I really wanted this to be more or less silent, so in that regard, I'm slightly displeased.

Other Thoughts: Not thrilled with this. If I could do it over, I'd probably buy something else. I got sold on the looks and that was a mistake.

Pros: Adjustable fan
easy drive install
automatically shuts drive down when not in use
FAST

Cons: heavy?

Other Thoughts: I use this as an enclosure for a 2TB WD green drive. It works great over eSATA or USB 3.0

Pros: solid construction, variable speed fan, price

Cons: none to date

Other Thoughts: would be handy to have the drive caddy available as an HD accessory to make this usable as a swappable drive.