This enclosure is solidly built, finely finished, with good fit for 3.5" internal hard drives of various brands, and easily to assemble. It offers IDE or SATA to USB 2.0 interfaces. The blue colored part is an aluminum case that helps dissipate the drive heat without cooling fan noises (the remainder gray parts are plastic). There are three popular colors in matte finish to choose from: red, blue, and black. The vertical stand is attached to the enclosure by a groove and two screws for added stability. The blue indicator light is an approximate match to the blue color of the enclosure case.
I used a Seagate IDE 250GB and a Hitachi SATA 500GB in the enclosure for the trials. Windows XP and Windows Vista readily recognized the assembled external hard drives. They were shown as USB devices with their respective hard drive product numbers and not the identity of the enclosure chipset. This could be important as some hard drive's proprietary software, such as Seagate DiscWizard, require the presence of the branded hard drive in order to be run. The data transfer was reliable, whether the file size was 2MB (photo files) or 49GB (a backup file). The data transfer rates were normal if not a little faster compared to my other external hard drives. The drives never got hot, just slightly warm during the data transfer or after being left on overnight.
I am particular about the position of the power switch. I do not buy any enclosure which power switch is jammed in between the power cable and the USB cable. This enclosure has the power switch conveniently located above the cables.
The tray that houses the hard drive is plastic, preventing the hard drive from making direct contact with the aluminum case for more effective heat dissipation. The side panel with the circuit board and internal connectors is screwed to the plastic hard drive tray, making frequent drive changes a risk of unthreading the screw holes.
Overall I am fond of this external hard drive enclosure, for its nice design and finish, dual internal hard drive interfaces, aluminum case, and reliable data transfer. I am using the Hitachi SATA 500GB in this enclosure permanently. I have also acquired a red for a 640GB SATA. Acomdata Samba USB 2.0 3.5-Inch IDE/SATA Hard Drive Enclosure SMBXXXU2E-BLK (Black)
I'm so disappointed! All these good reviews for this thing, and it doesn't work right. Let me say here that I tried it with my HP desktop and Dell laptop and get exactly the same results. Specifically:
I hooked it up per the instructions, turned it on, and... nothing. The computer didn't even see it. So I unplugged the USB cable and when I plugged it back in, the computer saw it and it came up. Great! Turned it off, turned it back on... nothing.
After MUCH experimentation I found that the drive must be powered on BEFORE being plugged in to the computer, which is not only contrary to the instructions, it's just stupid. It means you either have to let the drive spin constantly (stupid) or you have to disconnect the drive from the computer every time you turn it off (again, stupid).
If you leave the drive spinning, you can connect and disconnect the USB cable all you want, it recognizes it every time.
Makes no difference whether or not you properly unmount the drive before turning if off.
All the good things people have said about the instructions and the ease of putting it together are true but it doesn't really matter because as far as I'm concerned, this is a deal-breaker. I've written to Acomdata and will wait for their response but unless they have a REALLY GOOD idea, this enclosure is going back.
Update 6-16-10.
Several reviews here have mentioned that the jumper had to be set to CS, not master as the instructions say. That was my problem. After I changed the jumper, it works perfectly.
The Acomdata support people obviously don't know about this; they told me to send the drive back. Instead, I remembered about the jumper and tried it. It works great now. (I have told them about it, but don't look for them to re-print their instruction manuals.)
Why am I leaving my rating at 1 star? If I hadn't found out about the jumper, I'd have sent the drive back ($$), probably gotten another one which, of course, wouldn't have worked either, then sent it back. (More $$) If my 1 star rating makes people look at this review, it can save some people a lot of trouble.
I got two Acomdata Samba enclosures for the sole purpose of performing complete system backups for myself and other family members. The enclosures will be very difficult to use for that purpose. The computers I intended to use it for run Windows XP and Vista. Since Windows XP and Vista are listed in the enclosure's specifications, I assumed it would be usable for my intended purpose.
The problem is that the enclosure does not support Linux or DOS. Most backup programs require you to boot from their emergency CD or diskette when you want to restore your system from a backup. That makes sense. If your Windows has become corrupted and won't boot, or if the hard disk has failed and you have replaced it, you need to boot from an external medium like a CD, diskette, or flash drive in order to copy the image backup from your external drive to the disk in your computer. Most backup program's boot CDs or diskettes, don't boot into Windows. They boot into Linux or DOS, which are not compatible with the Acomdata drive. The result is that you have a complete system backup with no way to use it. I have verified that the Linux used by Acronis doesn't recognize the Acomdata drive, and since DOS is not listed in the Acomdata specifications, I assume DOS would not recognize the drive either.
I use Acronis True Image 10 for my backups. I tested the Acronis recovery CD with both Windows XP and Vista. In both cases the Acronis CD did not recognize the Acomdata drive. The hard disk I had in the enclosure was a 160GB Western Digital PATA IDE disk.
Since the Acomdata Samba specifications do not list DOS or Linux as being compatible, I only have myself to blame for getting enclosures that don't meet my needs. I think the Samba enclosure is a great enclosure for the price, for use as an external drive for data, but I thought I should warn people that it's not suitable as a system backup device. My next step is to research creating a BartPE CD that includes Acronis. That approach might solve the restoration problem.
I noticed another idiosyncrasy with the way the external drive works. On both XP and Vista, if the drive is plugged into the computer and turned on when the computer is booted, Windows does not recognize the drive. You must turn the external drive on after Windows is up and running. Only then will Windows recognize the drive. - Drive Enclosures - Sata - External Hard Drive - Usb'
Detail Products
Detail Reviews
Click here for more information
