COOLMAX HD-380BK-eSATA Leather & Aluminum 3.5" Black SATA eSATA + USB 2.0 OTB Function External Enclosure

Pros: Been using for 4 months now - HEAVY use - and had no problems. Easy to insert hard-drive, and most importantly, it never gets hot. I've got a TB WD Black Cavier in it and it's never more than warm to the touch. Of course, it's important to keep in mind that it's in an AC environment. Not sure how cool it would be in a hot room, since it's a fanless enclosure. Still, I have a another enclosure that does have a fan, a Rosewill, and if you turn the fan off that enclosure gets steaming hot, with the same HD and also in an AC environment. So hats-off to Coolmax for the cool design.

Cons: My main gripe is the front cover: The wire holding it to the body is so short that it makes it difficult to get the cover back on. Even being as delicate as I was, a small piece of plastic chipped off when I was putting it back on.

Pros: Pretty case, nicely designed. Disassembles easily, hard drive slides onto baseplate nicely, rails hold the case onto the baseplate firmly, with no sticking. Newegg's shipping was wonderfully fast!

Cons: Power connector is unreliable, leading to corrupt data. The barrel insert is short, and sits too loosely in the socket. Even a small amount of lateral pressure can interrupt power. I tested the enclosure on three different hard drives, and experienced differing levels of data corruption. You may not notice data corruption right away: it was obvious to me because it resulted in a corrupt password registry.

Overall Review: I really wanted to like this product, because aside from the power connector, it was very nicely thought through.

Pros: Nice case

Cons: Manual and software had to be download - OTB manual had to be found on site. Power supply different than advertised. Had to reboot several times to get operational - and then it would quit at times.

Pros: I agree with what's been said here: well built, inexpensive, goes together easy and solid.

Cons: I can't get XP to recognize it when using the USB connection. There's no evidence of any "removable" drives in Win Explorer or Device Manager. When I turn it on, the light blinks red/blue forever. Powering the enclosure down/up repeatedely and also trying different USB ports also no help. I know the SATA drive is good. Currently waiting on CoolMax support to respond. I haven't tried eSATA connecting yet, since I must have the USB connection working.

Overall Review: The "too good to be true" guy below was right.

Pros: This is used with a Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPM Drive to backup 8 severs. I have this connected though eSATA. I have also used the USB connection. I have 8 total so that I can rotate my backup drives (1 for for each day Mon - Thu and 4 Friday) The drives stay Cool and they work great.

Cons: None

Overall Review: If you need eSATA for a Dell Poweredge Server make sure that you get a J-Micron based card as Silcon Image cards do not work in Dell Poweredge Servers (at least not the Poweredge 1950)

Pros: looks great, very easy instalation

Cons: i cant get vista to recognize it as a removable media, drivers installed right away, it shows up in the hardware and device manager screens, however i cant access it

Overall Review: maybe its me but if its plug and play it should show up

Pros: Installation was extremely easy (less than 5 min). Been running for about an hour now with no heating issues and the eSata connection to the laptop is infinitely better than USB 2.0.

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: Used an old WD 250 GB Sata 1.5 HD from my desktop and vista recognized Immediately. Excellent buy for the price.

Pros: bought in 2010, still works in 2018 decent transfer speeds with usb 2.0. awesome thick nice feeling pleather.

Cons: takes about 1/2 hour to change out drives. original power supply that came with it broke.