Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

arew264 · 2009-06-12 22:36:28

I'm looking to buy a hard drive enclosure to attach to my linux box, and I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with the AEN-U35SE from Airlink (see http://www.airlink101.com/products/aenu35se.php ). It's fairly cheap at my local Fry's, but I'm wondering if anyone has had any issues with it, both with linux compatibility and cooling (they say it's fanless, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad). This would be attached to a server as bulk storage and wouldn't be under high usage, but I'm not wanting to doom my hard drive to certain death.
I can't find any reviews of it at all online, so I guess it must be at least fairly new. It's not carried by Tigerdirect or NewEgg, so I can't find anything there.

EDIT:
Gah, this product is apparantly discontinued, which is probably why NewEgg and TigerDirect didn't have it. Anything anyone can recommend? I only need one drive, and fanless is good as long as the drive doesn't overheat.

Last edited by arew264 (2009-06-12 22:46:07)

fukawi2 · 2009-06-12 23:18:27

I have several "Shintaro" cases. They're not *the* cheapest, but they're close and still good quality. Fanless, and haven't had any problems with Linux or heat. I stack 2 or 3 on top of each other and they do get hot, but they haven't caused any problems in the 2 - 3 years I've had them.

(I'm not sure about model number since they don't appear to have one printed on them :s)

arew264 · 2009-06-13 01:06:52

Do you have one of these:
http://www.i-tech.com.au/products/30352 … eSATA.aspx
http://www.i-tech.com.au/products/30354 … BLACK.aspx
?
I think they may have been discontinued because I can't find them at any major retail site, just smaller ones that I've never seen before. If I can find a decent price though...

fukawi2 · 2009-06-13 01:43:31

The second one looks close to mine, except mine are symmetrically rounded on the edges, not sloped down to an edge (I hope that makes sense)

arew264 · 2009-06-13 01:47:06

Well, I can't seem to find a Shintaro enclosure on any major retailer (or on Nextag or Bizrate, for that matter). I can find it at one or two small sites in foreign countries, but it doesn't look like something I can get my hands on.
Thanks for the suggestion, but it looks like it's been discontinued. How long have your drives been running?

EDIT:
Actually, I think the problem is that it's only in Australia. All the retail sites that include any enclosure with Shintaro in the name are Australian. That kinda rules it out for me, unfortunately.

Last edited by arew264 (2009-06-13 01:50:11)

fukawi2 · 2009-06-13 01:52:26

Wow, something I can buy that American's can't... That's a first

Sorry for the bum-steer, didn't know that was the case. (no pun intended!)

arew264 · 2009-06-13 02:06:27

I'd still appreciate any suggestions or good experiences, but has anyone used one of these ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6817182155 )? Newegg customers seem to really like it, but there aren't any reviews from people that have had it for over a year.

Last edited by arew264 (2009-06-13 02:06:44)

combuster · 2009-06-13 07:16:40

Just avoid coolermaster enclosures, they don't work on linux, got a x-craft lite 250 on some laptop review competition and it doesn't get recognized...

R00KIE · 2009-06-13 09:55:46

combuster wrote:

Just avoid coolermaster enclosures, they don't work on linux, got a x-craft lite 250 on some laptop review competition and it doesn't get recognized...

Shame on them, that or just plain cheap crappy chips they used to make it

On the issue of enclosures .... nothing I can recommend because so far I'm not happy with any I bought. On the compatibility side they are all ok but after a good period of time (1year or 1.5years) the the hd sometimes starts acting strange. It stops and restarts almost immediately, a problem that doesn't happen when I plug it inside my desktop pc. In one of the external enclosures I have narrowed the problem to the power supply.

I could plug a Y power cable and monitor the voltages with a multimeter, the 5V rail would be 4.5V when the disk acted strange but for some reason sometimes the rail was close to the nominal 5V (4.9V~5.1V) and everything would work well.

Because of this I have started to believe that the power supplies that have the 12V and 5V output are a big no no, there are several reasons for me not to like it specially because all of the 2 I have behave the same way >_<.

If possible I would get an enclosure that receives only 12V from the outside and then generates the 5V internally but I believe that is hard to find.

The two enclosures I have have are:
http://en.vipower.com/products01_01.php?ID=154 (this one as a bit expensive usb2 to ide)
http://www.tecforsis.pt/produto.asp?idproduto=16907 (cheap box usb2 to sata/ide)

graysky · 2009-06-13 10:57:25

I just bought a Rosewill RX-358-S BLK but it hasn't arrived yet. I'll let you know what I think of it when I get it here and working. From what I've read, cooling can be an issue with these things which is why I opted for this model w/ 80mm fan. Another feature you want to consider is eSATA as well as USB2.0 with the former being much faster.

Last edited by graysky (2009-06-13 10:58:32)

combuster · 2009-06-13 11:00:35

They use JMicron JM20336 SATA to USB controler and it should be supported over usb-storage module but it doesnt get recognized by the kernel... Lot's of users reported this issue... It's looking nice but I can't use it and it's picking up dust in my room...

brendan · 2009-06-13 11:22:21

I had a very cheap enclosure form ebuyer that worked great, but trying to help a mate with a broken hard drive enclosure I burnt it. Plugged in what was thought to be the faulty drive and bam now the enclosure doesnt work.... Stupid thing was a few weeks old.

kgas · 2009-06-13 11:50:09

Electronics shop is walk-able distance so not to worry about a search . TOSHIBA casings are relatively cheep. IMO this thread can be under off topic

Last edited by kgas (2009-06-13 11:50:55)

arew264 · 2009-06-13 17:06:33

I dunno where this thread should go, but I won't object if a mod moves it. I admit that it probably has very little to do with Arch.

The thing is that I'm buying this for use with a Sheevaplug ( http://www.marvell.com/products/embedde … vaplug.jsp ), and I can only use USB 2.0. I already have the SATA drive that I intend to move into the Sheevaplug.

My friend had an eSata enclosure on his multiboot Arch/Vista laptop, and the eSata drive had to be plugged in when the system booted or it wasn't recognized. Dunno if that's normal, but it was frustrating enough that he switched to USB 2.0. I helped him run tests with dd, and the read/write speeds weren't noticeably impacted. Then again, he was using eSata through an ExpressCard, and that might have been a source of problems.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-12 22:36:28

Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#2 2009-06-12 23:18:27

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#3 2009-06-13 01:06:52

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#4 2009-06-13 01:43:31

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#5 2009-06-13 01:47:06

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#6 2009-06-13 01:52:26

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#7 2009-06-13 02:06:27

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#8 2009-06-13 07:16:40

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#9 2009-06-13 09:55:46

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#10 2009-06-13 10:57:25

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#11 2009-06-13 11:00:35

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#12 2009-06-13 11:22:21

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#13 2009-06-13 11:50:09

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

#14 2009-06-13 17:06:33

Re: Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

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