MASSCOOL UHB-3232 Aluminum 3.5" Silver USB 3.0 External Enclosure

Pros: Simple setup
Non-PS2 power cable!!!
Price
USB 3.0
Good passive cooling (therefore quiet)

Cons: Nothing really that I can think of

Other Thoughts: No need to remove the screws on the back, which I originally did thinking that I needed to but the whole tray just slid out without needing to remove those.

Pros: It worked the first time I turned it on, USB3.

Cons: I've had two of these fail in the exact same way. The controller tends to die after a copule of weeks. Paid more in RMA costs now then I origionally paid for the units. Disks installed in the units work fine in other enclosures.

Other Thoughts: The enclosures were set up vertically to maximise convection cooling. Very light IO, used as archival storage.

Pros: I now have 3 of these drives performing backup duties. Fundamentally, they work at USB 3.0 speeds and are very cheap.

Cons: You do get what you pay for. The mechanical aspects of this case are poor.
There are a lot of sharp edges.
Not everything lines up. Dropping a hard drive into the chassis won't work as the internal SATA connector won't line up. All the screws need to be loosened to get things to line up. In a word "fiddly".
One case was received with the front mesh grill bent slightly (resolved easily).
One case had the screws holding the PC Board down VERY tight.

Pros: metal case; packed well; vented front; power switch.

Cons: There are 3 problems:

1: Built with the wrong screws attaching the circuit board to the stand-offs. Used tapered head when flat head is needed. The tapered head forces the circuit board out of position and even worse pushed the board down past the top of the stand-offs making it impossible to attach disk to the circuit board and possibly short circuiting the circuit board on the metal tray.

2: metal tray flexes possibly causing short circuit of disk electronics

3: included screw driver not the proper one for the screws

Other Thoughts: I replaced the screws with flat head and insulated the tray.

Pros: Looks REALLY nice, pretty good quality construction for the price.

Cons: NEVER spins down, even when the computer sleeps. Afraid my HDD was going to melt inside. Tried other cables and computers, but got the same result. Mine arrived with a few cosmetic defects - I would've dealt with that if it wasn't for the no-sleep issue.

Other Thoughts: Why would ANY modern HDD enclosure not allow the drive to spin down to save wear and tear? Ahhh!

Pros: Looked good. Good specs. USB 3 was a plus

Cons: Didn't work. Enclosed disk not recognized by computer. I suspect the internal connector was misalligned.

Other Thoughts: Returned via RMA.

Pros: Seemed to keep the drive cool enough.

Cons: Controller died after 1 month. No longer recognized by USB2 or USB3 controller.

Other Thoughts: Would be nice if it had a mesh screen on the top/bottom to help with convection to keep the drive from frying itself under load.

Pros: Inexpensive

Cons: Not recognized by my USB 3.0 hub, extremely hot, noisy, grinding

Other Thoughts: I thought these would fit the bill. I was moving from an ancient Mac Pro to a Mac mini and needed to keep my HDDs happy and connected. I ordered 4 of these Masscool enclosures since they were relatively attractive and affordable.

They become so incredibly hot to the touch! My LaCie Porsche P'9230 drives never ever get this hot.

They are very noisy. Yesterday my computer was idle, and the drives were just grinding and grinding and grinding away. My mac had already indexed the drives via spotlight, carbon copy wasn't running - there was no reason for the drives to be grinding like that, but they were grinding away. It made me worried that the controller in the enclosure was misbehaving.

The real kicker was that my Mac Mini 2012 (and my MacBookPro 13" late 2012) would only recognized the USB 3.0 connection when directly connected to the computer. The drives wouldn't show up at all via the USB 3.0 hub. My LaCie drives, my WD drives, and my ioSafe Solo 3TB all connect via the USB hub just fine. These enclosures wouldn't play.

So, back to newegg they go.

I ended up purchasing two additional LaCie P'9230 drives to replace my old HDDs altogether. That's how worried I am about the integrity of the drives after the Masscool grinding fiasco.

Pros: Currently backing up data at around 15 MB/s using Win7 and Asus Mobo. Was not expecting the crazy speeds they listed for USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 was the same way). Using a 5900 RPM SATA 6.0 GB/s drive. I figured it would help keep it cooler. While operating it consumes less power than a standard 7200 RPM drive.

Cons: Everything works as advertised. I wish this drive could be powered by USB only, but I am assuming USB 3.0 takes up a little more power than 2.0.

Pros: Nice case
power switch
quality USB 3.0 cable
gripped plastic stand
reports S.M.A.R.T status

Cons: screw wholes to secure drive are a bit tight, couldn't get all of them in.
didn't get a driver CD, but i don't need it

Other Thoughts: i don't think i will ever use the plastic stand - drive can fall and head will crash