After seeing some very poor reviews to the $10 and $15 enclosures, I decided I'd "splurge" and see if $20 could buy you a good drive enclosure. I'm glad I did. Unlike the plastic enclosures, this model uses a very well-designed aluminum case, which will withstand repeated installations. It also looks great, as a bonus, and appears to do a very good job dissipating heat. (You can tell this because the enclosure gets slightly warm to the touch. Contrary to popular belief, if something feels warm, that actually means it's doing a good job of pulling the heat out of whatever is inside it and letting it flow to the air. That's why heatsinks get hot, and why styrofoam cups don't.)
Internally, the printed circuit board (PCB) takes up the entire length of the enclosure, and the drive is screwed on to it. This is much more stable and rugged than the cheap enclosures, where the drive simply gets shoved in the enclosure and attached to a small PCB at the back.
An additional benefit you won't find on other, cheaper, enclosures is that an eSATA interface is offered, allowing for high transfer speeds if your computer can support this.
The only problem I encountered was that the manual was completely incorrect in its diagram of how to install the drive, and must be referring to a previous generation. Other than that, I have nothing but good things to say about this product. Acomdata Tango USB 2.0/eSATA 2.5-Inch SATA Hard Drive Enclosure TNGXXXUSE-BLU (Blue)
First of all, the enclosure works; that's always a bonus ;) I replaced my stock 80 GB 7200 RPM drive in my Dell E6400 and threw it into this enclosure. Worked fine with just one USB connector. When I got my eSATA cable (see my reviews), it connected right up and it worked perfectly with my Vista Business x64 install on my Dell E6400; no settings changes, no configuration, just worked. The eSATA cable fit nice and snugly into the connector and the connection feels pretty secure.
I verified that it was using eSATA using DiskBench and got transfer rates around 55-60MB/s for a 1 GB file. Solid. Dramatically improved my virtual machine load and save times.
Secondly, as a bonus, it's a very attractive case. It's relatively slim in profile (barely larger than the disk itself). The ends are plastic, but the core is anodized aluminum. The only way this could be better is if it came with some rubber feet or some rubber end caps or something to keep it from sliding around.
I would definitely recommend this if you are looking for an eSATA capable enclosure.
My HP dv9500 laptop just stopped working, no warning...no chance to recover any files....I had backed up lots of stuff on cd's...but not iTunes library and my CD collection and lots of jpgs...empty feeling in the stomach.....fast forward 2 weeks....Blue Tango Portable Enclosure Kit to the rescue. It was expensive to recover data from HDD ......so I just removed them from the broken laptop.
I read the Amazon reviews, and was skeptical of the cheap USB enclosures, but this enclosure got a good review and was only $20 with the bonus eSATA interface......so I ordered it Friday from Amazon prime....and it was delivered Monday 1:00pm.....Amazon rules.
First off, the manual does not describe how to install the drive...it has diagrams, which could be clearer, but just follow them best you can and fill in the blanks. The enclosure was well made, all aluminum, metal end caps, the screws fitted well, and it looks kind of stylish in blue. Installing the hdd was a breeze, place hdd on backplane and push into connector, and secure to the (pcb) with 4 screws.....push the backplane back into housing (making sure to locate backplane in slides), replace end cap and tighten 2 screws. The housing holds the hdd securely...the connectors fit well....so I guess you could carry this around with a laptop.....but remember it doesn't have any shock protection.
Connected the USB....it recognized the drive immediately loaded drivers and explorer opened my old hdd....with all my files accessible......great..... I connected using a single USB connector (2nd USB not required).....I didn't measure the time but it found all the files (110GB) in several minutes. I will connect with the eSATA interface when I get around to purchasing a connector cable (eSATA cable not included in box..pity).
This housing and USB/eSATA enclosure is recommended, it works perfectly for recovering my data, and I will format the hdd as a spare backup.
The case is aluminum, which is nice for heat dissipation. 7200rpm drives seem to be OK in this.
The board inside is full length phenolic resin with high quality copper etching and green resin coating. The USB to SATA bridge is square with the board, well soldered, and without any residue. The eSATA and USB ports on the back fit the endplate and are snug on the board, with equally good quality soldering for the electrical and mechanical connections.
The endplates are thin, white plastic painted metallic grey. They are fairly flimsy, so you need to be careful when you tighten the screws down. Also, this would not hold up to accident nor abuse. It's quite a contrast to the bulk of the case. It would have been nice to have metal endplates.
The serial number sticker is on the back plate which is attached by screws. This seems a poor placement. The serial number should be attached to a part which is permanently attached to the electronics, or to a durable part of the case.
The serial number reported by the device does not match the serial number sticker on the back.
The USB to SATA bridge is made by Sunplus Innovation Technology. This is a poor performance bridge. Sunplus bridges seem to top out around 18MB/sec regardless of the type of drive I use inside. I have other bridges from other manufacturers which give me slightly over 30MB/sec.
PROS: aluminum, everything fits, good price
CONS: Slow chip, plastic endplates, Software serial # mismatch - Enclosure - Sata - External Hard Drive Case - Usb'
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