Sabrent ECS-U35K Ultra Slim USB 2.0 3.5-inch IDE/PATA Hard Drive Enclosure (Black)

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $18.98

Features:

• 3-5-inch hard drive enclosure is designed for use with any IDE hard drive, up to 400 GB
• Durable aluminum case effectively dissipates the heat
• Case assembles without screws
• Includes enclosure, power supply, power cord, USB 2.0 Male-A to B-Male cable, enclosure stand, driver CD, user manual
• USB 2.0 connection (backward compatible with USB 1.1 specifications) provides a 480 Mbps transfer rate

Customer Reviews:

Affordable solution [Posted on 2008-04-24]
I recently had a problem with an internal hard drive where the file system just kicked the bucket due to a dying power supply. I wondered about turning it into an external hard drive. With so many choices which do I choose? Gotta be completely honest, this model won my vote simply because the shipping was less then at newegg.com which was offering a competitor brand at the same price. I read the reviews here and figured I'd give it a shot. It's not that expensive and if I can save all the data that was on my drive, $20 would be worth it. The drive arrived packaged with all the materials. The manual is written in broken english, so other then getting a quick chuckle from me it did nothing to help. No matter, this device is quite simple to figure out. You get a screwdriver and six screws to use with the unit. Four keep the drive in place and two keep the back of the unit itself in place. The screwdriver is the perfect size for all six screws. Just get yourself a little dixie cup to hold the screws and you won't lose them.

The device was easy to put together. Place the hard drive in the casing, screw it in place with the above mentioned 4 screws. I had a little difficulty initially getting the IDE cable to settle in completely, but it only took me an extra 15 seconds of effort to do so. I then screwed the cover in place and began to set it up. YES, THE USB CABLE IS SMALL. For me this wasn't a problem because it was close enough to the computer where size wasn't an issue. Anyhow, the most important part. The computer recognized the drive instantly. I had no problems copying data off the old drive now in it's case onto the new one. The system did run a bit hot but it wasn't a big ordeal.
I have now used this with 2 hard drives which are both set to CABLE SELECT. I did not have any problems. I would recommend then, that you set your hard drive to cable select. Overall, a great product for the price that can definitely save you some major cash and headaches down the line. The two hard drives tested were Maxtor 40 GB and 100 GB drives. Again, no problems. I would highly recommend this item.

bad power supply  [Posted on 2008-04-24]
Mine arrived with a non-working power supply. The whole thing quickly went into the trash and I bought a RocketFish instead.

Garbage... Beware!  [Posted on 2008-04-27]
Well, I just assembled this drive about ten minutes ago. I then plugged it up, and Vista recognized it immediately. Before I knew it, I was browsing all those files that I thought I had lost. I was elated! I thought to myself, "For only $18.99, I have recovered my data..." That thought was short-lived, since the drive came to a crashing halt just moments later. I don't know if I'll ever forget that "pop" and power down. I'm imagining that the data is all gone now, and, considering that it is five years' worth of data, I'll be beside myself if it is. I'm going to buy another 3.5" IDE to USB conversion kit to find out--you better believe that it will not be one from Sabrent!

Cheap product [Posted on 2008-04-29]
The power supply crashed after one day of use ... the delivery was fast though ... it's not the merchant's fault

eh ... it's ok [Posted on 2008-05-01]
Overall I would recommend a different brand enclosure. Had to read reviews here to get it up and going (needed to switch off the included usb cable). I had a storm with a power outage and the firmware quit working. 1 day after my 30 day return window with Amazon. Tried contacting Sabrent support and received a very generic response to my questions. If anyone figures out how to correct a Cypress AT2LP RC58 error, let me know!

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