CP TECH USB HDD Platinum Series External Enclosure - CP-U2H-3H
1 x 3.5" - External

Performed as expected. Allowed me to make use of an older IDE drive which had been replaced with 2 SATA drives. Works with XP Pro and Ubuntu 8.04. That said... It would be nice if the drive activity/power LED was on the front of the device. Also - the screw holes for mounting the drive are positioned such that the cables are crunched when the drive is installed in the tray. There is plenty of room to allow the drive to sit 1/2" further forward without crushing the cables.
 
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Easy to install with Windows XP. It was recognized right away and installed automatically. I think one other reviewer mentioned that their drive did not work if they used ONLY the USB cable. I had that same experience. My hard drive is a 250GB Western Digital Caviar Blue and it did not spring to life until I added the separate power supply that is included. This is not a major problem for me, but some might not like that limitation.
 
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I purchased one of these CP Tech USB 2.0 3.5" HDD Platinum Series External Enclosures. It worked right out of the box. It is well constructed. I liked it so much that I purchased a second one.
 
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This item was a snap to set up. Installing the hard drive was easy. My computer running Vista reconized the drive from the start. Very stout construction.
 
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This enclosure was easy to set up, and works as promised. It took about 5 minutes to install my drive (from a dead computer) without instructions. My old PC drive reads easily on my MAC. The case is also robust.
 
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This is a great little emclosure for the money. Solid and simple to use. Buy.com has a lot of great products, but I have been less impressed with their level of support when something goes wrong. Stay away from the affiliate program, this process is slow and vendors can revoke or cancel an order for any reason.
 
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Very easy to setup and use. Works great. Waiting for the rebate check!
 
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Excellent product. This thing has heft...aluminum with lots of ventilation slots, it barely gets warm during use. If you care about keeping things cool when you archive/backup data to an external drive this thing fits the bill. Many external drives are encased in plastic these days and get hot; this solid, retro type enclosure is the way they should make things.
 
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Full sturdy Aluminum case. It would have been a five star if its cable is long enough and a built-in fan. Installation is just a plug in to the USB 2 port and the power supply. Fast data transfer, portable, and very quiet. Now, I hope the rebate check comes as promised.
 
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This product worked really well to get the files off my old hard drive. It is quiet and did not overheat. The price is really affordable. I don't have anything negative to say about this enclosure. Vista recognized it right away.
 
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Just unscrew the 4 bottom screws, slide case apart, set the correct jumpers on the hard drive, connect the 2 connectors to hard drive, line up the 4 screws, drive in to mount the hard drive. Slide the case cover back on and reinstall the last 4 tiny screws. The just plug in the USB and power plugs. XP finds the drive and installs it. I reformatted my old drive, now set to go as a backup storage device. The drivers that came with it would not install no matter what I did, very frustrating. I would have been great if this came with some sort of automatic backup software, but for the price it's OK. The enclosed directions were useless. If you are not actively using the device, just shut off the power. Also it would not function using USB power alone, had to use the power block. The rebate seems slow, hopefully it will arrive, it was processed 3 weeks ago, still no check. All the aluminum acts as a good heat sink, keeps the drive cool.
 
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This IDE enclosure is sturdy and sleek. It works with Windows XP without using the included drivers.
 
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I bought this as a cheapo enclosure for my old IDE drives and it is just that. It has no fan or special software, but works fine. That's the synopsis; here's too much information: This enclosure is large (2" high and 9" long!) but not overly heavy. The perforated vents you see are part of the stamped steel or aluminum slide-out tray to which the hard drive mounts and which mounts to the (shinier) aluminum outer case, using four screws for each mounting. Other than the number of screws, installing a disk is easy. There is on one end of the tray a rocker switch for power, a round female connector for the power cord, a female USB-B connector, and an LED which shines red for power and blue for disk activity. The blue is bright enough to be seen through the perforations on one side. The disk spins whenever the power is on; it does not sleep. The drive comes with a driver CD and poorly-written instruction pamphlet, but neither was necessary as XP Pro's drivers install automatically and work fine. Don't forget you may need to initialize, partition, and format your disk. There is no fan, but it seems cooler to the touch than my fanned enclosure, keeping in mind that they're holding very different drives. It has no silencing to speak of, but neither is it notably noisy. That's all I've got.
 
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Great deal. Just attached the hard drive and plugged in the USB and it worked.
 
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As mentioned, drive never sleeps - big minus. Case made completely out of metal, NO plastic! - plus. Case is about 2" to long for a 3.5" drive - weird.
 
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The unit works as described. Be aware that Vista can have a problem. If so delete a corrupted file "infcache1". That should resolve most issues. Other than that the drive has a very solid metal case.
 
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The enclosure works fine if you don't plan on using it often. If the enclosure is left on all the time (there is a power switch) the drive keeps spinning which generates a lot of heat. Also, depending on what hard drive you are using, it would be noisy all the time. Mine isn't that loud with a Seagate Barracuda. It works fine with Vista except for one issue. If you have a shared folder on the drive and when you turn the enclosure on/off, the shared folder might not work properly. I have to sometimes re-share the folder.
 
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Had extra disk and needed a case for external backup. This case fit my need perfectly. Metal case dissipates heat and the length of supplied USB cable and power cable are fine. Only thing is the locations of power light and activity light...to me they are on the wrong end of the box...but can live with it...Good product..setup is easy...working in less then 10 min...
 
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Nice basic unit that works as advertised. Screws are a bit of a pain (would like to easily insert a different drive), but had it recognized on my Mac(10.x) and formatted in a few minutes. Note that it didn't draw power from USB - needed the power adapter.
 
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The specs dont show it but I contacted the manufacturer who said their newer models support Vista. I contacted Buy.com and they couldnt tell me if what they had was new stock, just a generic email back about vista compatability. I took a chance and it payed off. Easy to mount the EIDE drive and was up and running in a few mins. Directions arent the greatest and the enclosure pictured here isnt the one they ship. Pictured is a verticle mount, what you get is a horizontal mount which takes more desk space but that doesnt bother me, I imagine the dimentions are the same. Overall good buy for the money.
 
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Over the last couple of years I have moved 12 or more 3.5" and 2.5" drives into USB enclosures. This is one of the sturdiest and cleanest cabinets that I have come across. I will buy more of these .
 
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Sparse on directions but if you can open your computer case to get at the old drive(s) then you can easily figure out how to work this enclosure. Total of eight screws (four to hold HD to cradle, four to hold cradle inside chasis). Only way to make this better would be a quick rail system. Good value for the price.
 
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I received the hard drive enclosure; unboxed it; installed my hard drive; plugeed it in a booted up my computer. From the time I opened the box until the time I was accessing my hard drive was no more than five minutes. I am very pleased with its performance and my new-found access to my old data files.
 
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Great buy, and it works well. No problems
 
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The case is absolutely quiet even during heavy use. The aluminum construction keeps the drive cool during operation. The case/drive combination is a little heavy but you can take the stand off of it to lighten it up. The power indicator light is hard to see even in the dark. This is a good choice to get some extra life out of an old IDE drive you may have laying around. I would definitely buy an E-SATA case with a SATA drive if you are looking to buy a case/drive combination.
 
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This unit is easy to assemble and is well made. The only limitation observed is that the indicator activity light is on the side, and not in front. Normally you would stage the unit with the narrorest edge toward you and therefore you cannot see drive activity. Other than that limitation the unit works as advertised.
 
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The soldering came off for one of the wires when I was putting Internal Hard Drive in. It is well designed and intuitive. There is NO fan. It needs external Power. The entire body is aluminum. Besides that, not much to it. It works!
 
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It's simple to put together, though it does mean a few screws, so don't plan on swapping out the drive too often, but it seems pretty sturdy and only gets warm, doesn't seem to get hot. The enclosure is straightforward to put together and seems to work well. The LED is even pretty flashy colors. Now I have 30 gigs of extra storage instead of a dead CPU. Just keep two things in mind: this is for harddrives that come from desktop computers, not laptops, and have a little tiny screwdriver ready for the itty bitty screws on the outside of the enclosure.
 
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The case arrived on time. It was very easy to put it together and make it work. I was surpised by quality of the components and packaging (I have three other enclosures to compare with). Some people complain about the vertical stand but that is not bad either. BUY.COM is one of the best online sellers (there are few others too) and I am very happy with my purchase. One note I am using a 160 GB drive. You might want to check if the enclosure will accept higher capacity drive.
 
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This enclosure looks good, performs as expected. The transfer rate seems slower than the internal HD, but appears normal for the USB interface. Windows XP Pro recognized this "USB mass storage device" and installed the drivers without the use of the installation CD. The power adapter connection and the USB are two inches apart on the same side panel, which mars the perfect cable management.
 
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This was one of the least expensive external drive storage I could fine and it works as promised. There is a little bit of assembly required, and I wouldn't want to swap hard drives from the enclosure frequently, but it delivers. The enclosure is dead quiet with no fan, yet appears to cool the hard drive effectively as the aluminum case gets warm and cools down depending on whether the drive is in operation or not. The indicator light for power and drive access is slightly misplaced and difficult to read, but not terribly important. It is also a little slow in terms of transfer speeds - but this is to be expected given the USB interface. Overall, I would recommend this for archiving and other storage that doesn't require rapid I/O access. I am going to buy a second drive enclosure.
 
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