Samba USB 2.0 3.5-Inch IDE/SATA Hard Drive Enclosure SMBXXXU2E-BLK (Black)

I purchased this HD enclosure for two reasons. The first was to easily access and wipe the contents of IDE hard drives that had come out of a computer which had died and was about to be rebuilt with a motherboard that only included SATA HD connections, as is often the case with the latest technology. The second reason was to take the obsolete IDE with the highest capacity and use that as an external hard drive for backups, file transfers, etc.The Samba did everything I asked of it without issue. Installing and uninstalling IDE drives was a piece of cake, albeit a little more time consuming than attachments designed to be temporary in nature. The instructions were easy to follow and installation was not complicated. The only nits I had with it was that the IDE connector is part of the PC board which could lead to breakage if you're not careful in lining up the hard drive with the connector, and there was not a lot of room for tucking away the unused SATA cables and connectors.I used the enclosure with 3 different IDE hard drives. One was an IBM Deskstar 80GB, one was a Maxtor 120GB and one was a Maxtor 300GB. Each was recognized instantly as an external HD device by my primary system, which uses Windows XP (SP3) as the OS. I was then able to work with the hard drives as though they were just another drive in my system.Wiping the files meant several hours of access, sometimes without a break, for each of the hard drives. With no fan in the Samba, I was interested to see whether heat would be an issue. While the Maxtors in particular did cause the enclosure to get fairly warm after a half hour or more of constant access, the temperature never raised beyond that point and never became warm enough to cause problems with the hard drive's behavior. I had read elsewhere that the old Maxtors tend to get hotter than other drives, but the Samba handled them just fine.None of my nits were enough to knock a star off my rating for this enclosure. It was well priced, quiet (thanks to not having a fan), easy to use, easy to cart around, looks nice, and performed flawlessly. I'm delighted with it.

COMPARISON REVIEW for  Acomdata Samba USB 2.0 3.5-Inch IDE/SATA Hard Drive Enclosure SMBXXXU2E-BLU (Blue)  and  Vantec NexStar CX NST-300S2-BK 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (Black) I recently swapped out two 750 GB Seagate SATA drives from my HP Mediasmart Servers and replaced them with 2 TB WD Green drives (WD20EADS). I wanted to convert those two Seagate drives into external drives for backup purposes using USB drive enclosures. I had bought several enclosures a while ago, so I had to do the research to figure out which were better these days. My criteria were (1) not expensive (drives are so cheap today that an expensive enclosure sort of defeats the purpose of re-using old drives if you want to be cost-effective since you can just buy a new external drive for not much more than the fancier enclosures); (2) easy to assemble without the stress of thinking you are breaking something or somehow degrading the performance of the drive; (3) it just works (the occasionally elusive ease of the "plug and play" ideal). Also, a personal preference, I wanted a physical on/off switch and not a "touch-sensitive" electronic switch (like that found on the  Macally G-S350SU Hi-Speed eSata/USB2.0 External Storage Enclosure for 3.5inch SATA HDD ) or no switch. Finally, I also wanted good heat dissipation and vibration control.After research, I purchased two enclosures: (a)  Acomdata Samba USB 2.0 3.5-Inch IDE/SATA Hard Drive Enclosure SMBXXXU2E-BLU (Blue)  and (b)  Vantec NexStar CX NST-300S2-BK 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (Black) . The Acomdata Samba enclosure was more expensive than the Vantec (although I only expect to use these enclosures for SATA drives and did not need the flexibility of being able to install IDE/PATA drives, if you do, only the Acomdata Samba enclosure has that flexibility). The Acomdata Samba enclosure was okay to assemble, I found that it was a tight fit in the case, the extra IDE/PATA connector did get in the way of the other components of the circuit board when I pushed the drive in, there is a metal top which does not obviously fit well with the rest of the case, and most problematic in my experience, my front fascia fell off while I was installing the drive and then when I put the drive in, it almost fell through the entire enclosure, I had to press the front fascia with significant force to snap it back in, but once i did that there was a secure fit. No big danger since I was careful, but a bit startling. Once assembled, the drive seems secure and the overall look is nice (I got the blue one, there are three colors available now on Amazon.com). Plugged everything in and the Acomdata Samba enclosure just works as hoped.The Vantec enclosure was 37% less expensive at the time of my purchase and this model only has the ability to work with SATA drives (like the ones I had). The Vantec enclosure was easy to assemble and easier than the Acomdata. There is no PATA connector to get in the way, there was no extra flimsy thin metal top to the circuit board and there is no snap-in front fascia to fall off. It seems a simpler set-up with two pieces (1) a circuit board permanently attached to the back fascia and (2) the encasing around the drive. Like the Acomdata you use four screws to attach the drive to the circuit board. With the Vantec you do have to plug in a little connector to attach the drive to the LED light. The connector seems pretty flimsy, but connected fine. The screws used to attach the back fascia to the case on the Vantec were tiny! I was concerned that they are easily stripped and I barely had a phillips screwdriver small enough to fit in the indentation where those back fascia screws were supposed to go.Once completed, the Vantec also seems secure. Plugged it in and it also worked well as expected. Both enclosures come with the bright blue LED lights with the Acomdata having the bigger and brighter light (looks kinda like a little Cylon, though with an unmoving blue eye). The Vantec comes only in Black at the time of my purchase from Amazon.com and has in my opinion cheesier-looking logos and design than the Acomdata (although I personally could not care less and IMHO find the look of enclosures irrelevant to my own purchase decision). The completed Vantec enclosure is somewhat smaller than the Acomdata enclosure. I like the Acomdata on/off switch better, it is a rocker switch, versus the push-button toggle on/off switch of the Vantec. They both seem fine on the heat dissipation and vibration control front as far as I can tell. They both get slightly warm in a similar way (they have the same make and model Seagate drives in them). Please note that both enclosures do not have a fan (which I tend not to like because the cheaper fans can be too loud for me, although obviously they would improve air flow in the enclosures).Anyway, although neither enclosure is perfect, in the end I was actually quite happy with both of them and can recommend them both (I wanted to be clear and picky for this review, but both are serving my purposes well). I give the edge to the Vantec since it is cheaper and easier to assemble overall. Five stars for the Vantec enclosure and four stars for the Acomdata Samba. Hope this comparison review helps!

I often convert internal drives to external drives so I'm always looking for the "perfect" enclosure. I recently bought two of them from Amazon and one is the Acomdata Samba. The enclosure is a bit larger than others but it can accommodate either a PATA or a SATA drive, which is one reason why I bought it. I tested it with both kinds of drives and it works equally well. Installation takes about one minute. You unscrew small screws at one end of the case and the drive holder slides out through that end. There are two sets of cables, one for PATA drives (IDE parallel drives) and one for SATA drives (serial drives). Some reviewers said they had space problems and had to cut the cables they weren't using. I had no such problem. There is space to retain both sets of cables in case you later decide to install the other kind of drive. I used it with several different brands of drives because I was using the enclosure, at first, to transfer data off of several existing internal drives. I tried the unit on three different computers and each computer immediately recognized the Acomdata enclosure as soon as I plugged in the USB cable. It performed as it should. I can't think of any significant issue that would make me wish I had bought another brand. I'm not saying there aren't other brands that are just as good because there are, but this does what an enclosure should do and I had no problems with installation or use.