VANTEC ST-530S3-BK Aluminum 5.25" USB 3.0 External 5.25" Optical Drive Enclosure USB 3.0 External Interface

Pros: Great build quality, worked perfectly with my Pioneer Blue Ray Drive, USB 3.0, plugged it in and it worked with Macbook Pro Retina, no hassles.

Cons: Loud fan

Other Thoughts: The fan is noisy but not deafeningly so, louder than my laptop fans though.

Pros: Update to my earlier review.

Cons: Like the other reviewer said, the fan is loud. I didn't notice it before because I was using it in a no-so-quiet business setting. It has a thermal sensor and starts up a little bit after you turn it on. I ended up just disconnecting the fan. Neither the HDD or power supply gets more than warm. I'm not worried about it.

Doesn't come with any kind of blank for the hole in the front. I know that most people will use this with an optical drive but I'm not. I have a shock mounted 3.5" HDD holder that required a 5.25" enclosure.

Other Thoughts: I still love the use of a regular IEC power cord. Not having a stupid wall wart is awesome.

Discovered that there is a spot to solder an eSATA connector on the controller board. That'd make this enclosure even better.

Pros: The body enclosure is made of aluminum and other metals. Design makes it easy to install the drive you want to use in the enclosure. Standard power cable is the same that is used for desktop PC power supplies. USB 3.0 speed are very fast.

Cons: Fan is very loud. I also own the model that has eSATA/USB, and that model is very quiet. To compare, this enclosure is 3 times as loud.

The USB 3.0 A-A cable is around 3 feet long, and makes it too short for my tastes. I am also disappointed the manufacturer went with A-A. The problem is the A-A is very difficult to find a replacement for. If they chose A-B, I could use my USB 2.0 printer cable to connect. If they used A-micro B or mini B, I could use my cellphone cable to connect the enclosure to the PC. USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0 but very few devices uses A-A.

Because of the metals used in construction, this case is very heavy. With a Blu-Ray drive installed, it is around 4-5 pounds.

Other Thoughts: The packing box is very high quality and you can use it to carry around the enclosure after you have installed the drive.

Pros: All aluminum chassis and cover. Really incredible in this day and age of flimsy steel and plastic. Only the front and rear faceplates are plastic. You could probably use this to chock the wheels on your car...it's that solid.

No wallwart needed! I love that you can use any standard IEC computer power cord.

Fan is near silent. I was worried because most small fans are annoying but not this one.

Supplied USB 3.0 A-A cable is about 3' long and fairly flexible.

Cons: Big and heavy. But awesome has got weight to it. Suck it up Sally.

Uses a rectangular USB "A" connector. This is not standard. Most peripherals have square "B" connector. This means that if you loose the supplied A-A cable, you are stuck until you mail order another. I knocked off an egg for this.

Other Thoughts: This would be perfect if it had a normal USB 3.0 connector and an eSATA port.

Any drive up to 7.5" long will fit. I'm using a LG WH14NS40 Blu-ray burner which is only 6.75" long.

Don't drop it on any small animals.

Pros: Quick to assemble, computer acknowledge the hardware right away.

Cons: None so far

Other Thoughts: This thing has been awesome as of so far!