Vantec NexStar 3 NST-360SU-BL 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 and eSATA External Hard Drive Enclosure (Midnight Blue)

Prospective buyers will want to take note that the negative reviews are quite old. That said, I combined this enclosure with a WD Caviar Green WD15EARS 1.5TB, 64MB Cache drive. It runs VERY cool and almost completely silent. I have no issues with eSATA, it is fully plug and play the same as USB, at least with Windows 7. No reboot required. I was able to copy 20gb of data in less than 10 minutes over eSATA. The unit's construction is solid, especially given the low price point. And you can't beat that electric blue color! All the cables are included, as is a eSATA slot adapter for a full PC. About the only area it falls short on is that the power connector doesn't fit as snugly as I would like.

I have a bunch of this type. they are great USB 2.0 enclosures but Windows 11 24H2 will not recognise them. this is the same with the WD MyBook external drive. Some enclosures will work. My docking stand and 2.5" external with SSD. Both are USB 3.0.

I haven't had any of the problems that other people noted with this. The case itself never gets more than warm and after taking the drive out after a few minutes of use, the hard drive itself was not hot (and contrary to one review, there were several points of contact between the drive and mounting bracket and the case). I've had no problems with lack of power either with a 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda 500 GB drive. No problems with installation. I bought this to replace a more expensive enclosure that had a fan in it. The fan collected tons of dust in areas that were difficult to clean, which may have led to its failure. The only issues I have with this are minor. The power supply connector is rather tight; it takes more effort than it should to unplug it from the back of the unit. The power cable is on the short side - only about 3 ft The eSATA cable that it came with was crap - the connectors weren't very good, the insulation was thin, and it broke after about 2 days, luckily I had a better cable on hand. If it weren't for the crappy cable, I'd probably give it 5 stars.

... is the fact that it spins down the drive for its "power saving" feature after much too short a time! Can't they make this time selectable with firmware or something? Sure, it's great to save power and all, but the way it's factory configured makes the enclosure junk! If I am watching a movie stored on the drive, and I pause it for a few minutes, it spins down. Side effect? When I press play again, the video lags (while the drive spins up), but the audio keeps going. Then for a few long seconds, the video will suddenly go really fast to catch up to the audio! ANNOYING!!! Also, when I plug it into my DVD player with USB input (for DIVX and related content), the spin-down time does something worse: it causes the DVD drive to revert to the DVD player's USB menu if the drive spins down while it's paused! I have to find the video, resume playback, and skip back to where I was all because I paused it "too long." Totally unusable for watching videos on my big TV this way! Further, the spin-down means that if a piece of software is parsing the USB drives for any reason, I get this pause where my OS freezes (in all versions of Windows I have tried it on, up to Win 7 Ultimate x64) while the drive spins back up. Sometimes this happens ALL THE TIME when operations are happening (like whenever I want to open or save a file in some piece of software, even if not accessing the NexStar!), costing me several seconds each and every time. Sure, I can look the other way, but I just want it to work seamlessly, like it's an internal drive (like my other external drives do). Plus, constantly spinning up and down a hard drive wears it out MUCH faster than continuous operation (it has to do with heating/cooling the parts, and the fact that inertia helps keep things going when it's already spinning). So any savings you might experience in the short term by reduced power usage from spinning down the drive will likely be offset (and more) by having to buy a new drive sooner rather than later (although my 1Tb drive in there has not failed...yet). The above said, I really wanted to like this enclosure, and I have given it ample time for me to get used to it (over a year). It's sleek, gets slightly warm (a good thing meaning it has good thermal transfer), never crashes or loses drive enumeration with the OS (even on a USB hub with other drives that do), and is well-made. I will keep looking though because of its fatal flaw... Edit: I found a work-around for Windows. I now use the free (donation-ware) software NoSleepHD to keep the drive from sleeping (NOTE: Must run it as an Administrator, or it won't work!). It writes to a text file every 1 to 15 minutes (you choose how long) to keep the drive from sleeping. Works for the Windows environment (at least) if set to 1 minute, but not for my DVD with USB. Oh well, I just use a flash drive for that now anyway...

I bought this enclosure and had some difficulty folding the parallel cable tight enough to allow the cover to close. Also, the enclosure came with the LED cable detached, so I had to carefully look at the very dark photo to see how it should be attached. After getting it going I noticed that in a horizontal orientation, it ran extremely hot. In a vertical orientation it ran hotter than is good for longevity of the drive and electronics. Within 24 hours, the LED burned out. The case is very slippery on most surfaces, creating the possibility of the device falling off one's desk. Drilling some vent holes in the metal case could help with the overheating problem. Overall, the design and quality control are below acceptable, but the appearance is good. Donald Gudehus

I have bought other Vantec External Hard Drive Enclosures for 2.5 inch drives. I was very pleased with the quality and performance of the units. When it came time that I needed and enclosure for a 3.5" drive, I figured I would stay with a brand I had been happy with before, and this product did not disappoint! Very well made, works great, and even looks pretty cool.

This is a terrific enclosure. The unit is quiet, the heat dissipates quuickly, looks great. Overall the unit is a terrific enclosure for a real bargain price.

I recently purchased this enclosure and hooked it up using the eSata. I love the speed and it is working as advertised. It seems to get a bit hot when left on for extended periods. Now I only turn it on when I need it and it working like a charm. Installation was very easy and it worked right out of the box. Recommended if you don't need to leave it on 24/7/365 and want the speed of eSata.