Vantec Nexstar GX USB 3.0 Dual 2.5" SATA SSD/HDD RAID Enclosure, Black (NST-272S3-BK)

First let me explain why I needed this product. I had a 3 year old laptop which stopped working and was out of warranty, so I went and got a repair estimate for the laptop which turned out to be much higher than I'd expected. I decided to part it out but kept the hard drive because it was fully functional and had ample space which would be ideal as a portable USB HDD. I didn't own any portable HDDs but have always considered getting one for transferring large DVD movie files. I searched around for a quality aluminum enclosure that didn't break the bank which is where this Vantec comes in.When looking for an enclosure for the hard drive I decided to go with Vantec because they have a good reputation for external enclosures. I own one of their DVD drive enclosures and have been very happy with it. I used it as a portable DVD burner. When I went looking for a hard drive enclosure I wanted something simple but of good quality and low cost so I ended up with this Vantec model which fit the bill perfectly.This model is simple..very simple. It has a single green power/activity LED and one mini USB jack. The exterior design is very nice and the enclosure itself is made of aluminum so it helps cool the hard drive inside. The enclosure comes with a USB Y cable that has two fullsize USB jacks but for my use I only needed to plug in one. If you're using a power hungry highspeed HDD then you may need to use two USB ports to power it. Assembly was equally simple with only two screws. A small screwdriver is also included.One thing to note is that my HDD slightly rattled inside the enclosure. It wasn't a deal breaker but I didn't like the rattle so I came up with a simple fix by sticking 4 very thin double sided pieces of foam tape on the 4 corners of the HD inside of the enclosure. This cured the rattle. The tape I used was about 1 - 1.5mm thick and I only peeled off one side of the tape in order to stick it onto the HD. I left the other side covered so it wouldn't stick to the inside of the HD enclosure.After assembly I plugged it into my computer and started transferring about 75GBs of data without any problems. The HD stayed very cool and the transfer was very fast. All in all I'm very happy with this product and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for something that is simple, low cost, stylish, of good quality and performance.

I heartily recommend this kit.I needed to update my laptop's hard drive, and needed a simple way to connect the new drive to USB to clone the existing drive. I read the reviews on this kit, and decided to try it out. I'm happy to say it did exactly what I wanted to do. Better yet, the quality is good enough that I'm going to have an extra 500Gb portable drive now for additional backup purposes!I was pleasantly surprised by both the simplicity and the quality of the product. It came with a simple but clear installation guide written in multiple languages. No Engrish here; the wording is well-written English. It even included a handy mini screwdriver to remove the old drive from its mounts and close the enclosure case. Two extra case screws were included too.In case you're wondering from the photos, the clear plastic sheet is designed to protect the drive circuitry from shorting out against the metal case. Good idea.The enclosure is super-simple - just a slice of hollow rectangular aluminum extrusion, with end caps. The non-active end cap includes a couple foam blocks to keep the drive from moving after you close the end cap. I have a thinner profile drive, which other reviewers have complained might rattle around inside the case. I didn't have that problem; perhaps the foam blocks are a new addition to solve that problem. The other end contains a small circuit board which includes a fixed SATA power+data connector block. My old hard drive (a 2009 Seagate model) plugged in perfectly.The only thing I would want different might be some padding, but I got this enclosure because it was super-inexpensive and I realize rubber moldings or shock mounting would cost more. I have no complaints about what I did get.I tried using the drive with only one of the two larger USB cable ends plugged in; it worked fine.I noted that the specs say that 500Gb is the maximum size. Both my drives are 500Gb and both worked fine.