Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a great product for when you need fast (but not constant) access to a variety of different SATA hard drives in which putting them in a permanent fixture would be kind of a pain due to constant swapping. This is a TRUE plug-and-play device, and it plays nice with multiple operating systems. With a USB 3 interface, this enclosure maintains high-sustained read/write speeds, which means less waiting for your data to copy over. However, this is NOT a good permanent drive for most Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) due to the sustained temperatures that can be generated, and the lack of active cooling devices. ---------- TERMS I will use a few abbreviations here... --HDD - Hard Disk Drive - that is, a hard drive that has a disk that physically spins rapidly, usually between 4,200-7,500 RPM --SSD - Solid State Drive - that is, a hard drive that uses flash memory like that used on USB flash drive (i.e., no moving parts) --SATA - Serial ATA - that is, the interface used to connect a hard drive to the computer internally or an enclosure externally --USB - Universal Serial Bus - the port used to connect this external drive to your computer & the most common computer port used today (there are three different generations: 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, each which offer increasingly faster data transfer speeds) ----------------------- EASE OF USAGE & ACCESSIBILITY This enclosure accepts both 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch hard drives, provided the drive uses a SATA interface (ex: if the hard drive uses IDE/PATA or SAS, it will not fit the SATA port on this enclosure.) Usage of this enclosure is simple. More or less, you lift up the flap on the enclosure, connect the hard drive to the SATA port, plug the USB cable (and, depending on the drive, power cable) into the unit, and plug it into the computer for fast-access plug and play. (Obviously, the way the hard drive is formatted/journaled will determine just how much you can do with it on a specific operating system.) Being capable of working with USB1.1, USB2, and USB3, this drive will work with a wide range of computers (both old and new), and it plays well with both Windows and OS X. While there are many USB 3 devices that do not deliver speeds as high as expected, this enclosure delivers excellent sustained read/write speeds (when paired with a higher speed hard drive, of course.) --------------------------------- LIMITATIONS & EXCESSIVE HEAT WITH CONSTANT HDD USAGE While this is great enclosure for intermittent usage and infrequent backups, it is NOT the best choice for constant usage, especially with the higher speed HDDs. The case does NOT seal out dust/debris, does not lock closed, does not give any sort of shock/impact damage protection, provides no magnetic shielding, and has no cooling system built-in. So especially with high-speed HDDs, it can get extremely hot. Heat can be a major catalyst of premature failure of spinning disk hard drives (mind you, not the biggest). An hour of usage with an older 10,000 RPM WD Raptor I have saw tremendous heat generation. And while that is perfectly fine for intermittent usage, this is too much heat for frequent or prolonged usage, and given this enclosure is mainly plastic, it just doesn't dissipate this heat all that well. So with higher RPM HDDs that you plan to use frequently/constantly, a dedicated enclosure with some shock protection and a cooling fan/heat sinks is probably a better choice. (With a SSD, none of the above is much of a concern.) ------------- OVERALL Overall, this is a great product. It manages to work well with a wide range of drives and on a wide range of systems. It's reasonably well built, versatile, and affordable. When you buy a new computer and need to transfer old data over, this enclosure offers a huge convenience over other methods. If you need an enclosure that offers you fast-access to numerous different 3.5 and 2.5 inch SATA hard drives, this is a great choice.