Ultra 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure

It's not often that I get really excited about a piece of hardware that I spent under $20 on and want to tell all of my geek buds about. But such are the bargain hardware joys to be found in the Ultra Products Ultra 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure. Listed at a SRP of US$59.99, the Ultra enclosure can be had at TigerDirect for only $19.97. For $60, this cheap plastic HD case would be overpriced, but for less than a Yuppie Food Coupon, it's a steal.

It's that cheap plastic that's one of the few cons on this product. With its black finish, silver highlights, and bright flashing blue and red LED status lights, the Ultra's not half bad looking on your desktop, but in your hand, you can feel the cheap and thin grade of the plastic used. Not a big deal, unless you drop the drive. The kit does come with screws to attach your HD to the enclosure, but there are no shock absorption rubbers as you might find on more expensive enclosures. So, if you get one of these cases, make sure you don't knock it over or off of your desk!

One of the cooler features (no pun intended) is the 40mm fan in the back of the case. Vent holes in the bottom handle the circulation. We're not sure how effective the cooling design is, but it's a nice "bonus" feature that you'd normally spend a lot more to get.

The Ultra 3.5 handles both USB 2.0 and FireWire, and thoughtfully, comes with a cable for each connection type, nice cables too, not chinchy ones. The FireWire cable can come in especially handy because the Ultra is made for FireWire daisy-chaining of up to three external drives. To accommodate this, there are two FireWire (and one USB) ports on the back.

I'd never rolled my own external drive before. I knew it was easy, but I didn't know just how easy. Basically, you unscrew the feet/case connectors, pry the case apart, plug in the IDE ribbon cable and the Molex power connector, screw the HD into the case mounts, put the case back together, screw the feet back on, and you're done. Anybody can make their own external drive. There really is no reason to buy a commercial one. Just get a case like this, buy the cheapest drive on sale (or maybe use one from an old PC) and you're good to go.

Some people who've bought this drive case have complained that getting it apart was difficult and it sounds like you're breaking it when you pry it open. Luckily, I'd seen the little TigerDirect tutorial on the Ultra 3.5 product page, so I wasn't timid about yanking it apart. The tutorial also shows you how to format the drive on a Windows machine, if it's a new HD. If it's an existing drive, Windows should recognize it. A Mac will recognize both an old and a new HD.

I've probably got half-a-dozen drives from old computers lying around, bitrotting. I'm going to go through them, get off any material I want to archive, and then chain two of these drives together to make a redundant backup. Not bad for a $40 investment. At $20 a pop, this is a nice tool to have handy in your box, just in case you need it.

Gareth Branwyn -[Monday, July 30, 2007]
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