Adaptec ACS-100 (2177400) USB 2.0 External Drive Case

Pros: High quality. Flawless performance. Looks nice. Great value for the money.
Cons: Runs a little hot (but I've never had any problems).

I have 3 of these hard drive enclosures and they all have performed flawlessly. This is a pretty simple device so there is not a lot of description needed other than it is an external enclosure for 3.5" hard drives. Simply install the drive in the ...

Pros: fit, finish, design
Cons: insufficient cooling for hotter hard drives, in my opinion

Nice aluminum finish. Includes USB2 cable, vertical stand, and power supply.

Enclosure touches top of hard drive in order to become heat sink. There is no fan.

Only problem is that with my 4-platter 3.5" hdd, it generates too much heat so I use a table fan to blow on the enclosure. Otherwise, lower-power hdds should work fine w/o any extra cooling.

Pros: Looks nice.
Cons: Melted. No plug-and-play. Adaptec knows it's not worth fixing, tells you to throw it away.

Bought 2 of these units for a server backup system. Once a week one unit would be swapped for the other and used at night to backup a small server. Right from the beginning I had problems with the server not assigning a drive letter to the external drive and I would have to manually re-assign the letter every week. Now one of the hard drives died so I took the unit apart and found the plastic that surrounds the hard drive was MELTED, with imprints into the plastic from circuitry on the bottom of the drive. I hope Seagate replaces the drive... Called Adaptec, the service rep told me to throw the unit away and he would send me a new one. Like I would put another of these things into 24/7 run-time? Now I will purchase better enclosures from another manufacture.

Pros: Ease of use. Light weight. Really nice power on indicator.
Cons: Would like to have front on-off switch. A little pricey but worth it.

Unit is easy to put drive into. Very reliable, great value. Runs a little warm but so far no problems. Easy to change drives. I don't feel shorted in any way with this purchase.

Pros: I got it for 50% off on sale.
Cons: No tech support. No hot plug. No fan. External power supply bulky. Short USB cable.

I bought this drive on the strength of the Adaptec name. I have purchased many other adaptec products, mostly SCSI adapters, and have had very few problems.

It turns out that Adaptec, or their tech support henchmen, want nothing to do with this drive enclosure. The official word was that this product was 'unsupported'. Meaning you are on your own.

I have had several problems getting my PC to recognize this unit. The drive I put in this is a fairly new 100GB Western Digital, which I had no previous problems with. I have to completely shut my computer off, and then power up the enclosure and wait for it to get ready, and then power up the computer. No hot swap whatsoever. The same goes for my laptop, an older Dell. I would look elsewhere.