Startech S3510BMU33 3.5-Inch USB 3.0 External SATA III Hard Drive Enclosure (Black)

Of the various 3.5" enclosures I've looked at, I prefer this one. It reaches very high speeds on a USB3.1 Gen-1 (USB3.0) or Gen-2 port. The case is aluminum (great for heat dissipation) and comes with a quality cable (of very sufficient length). It's easy to assemble and is very sturdy. And it has a power switch, unlike some of the pre-built units. Insert a Western Digital NAS or Black drive and you're ready to go! And it looks nice as well. I'm using a WD NAS 6TB (5400 rpm) drive in one, and a WD Black 2TB (7200 rpm) drive in another.This goes well with the StarTech PEXUSB321A 2-port USB3.1 PCIe card, but I initially tried this on a new PC with a USB3.1 port and the performance is great. With a hard drive (or even an SSD) you will not realize even close to a 10Gbps transfer rate, but the speed is impressive nonetheless.This unit does not contain a fan, so streaming, or transferring large amounts of data at once requires an external fan...not a big deal. If the unit gets hot, blow some air by it. The aluminum is doing its job. Fanless is a choice WE make. Hard Drives get hot; not the enclosure's fault! Life can occasionally be this unfair.....but the strong overcome!I use a 6" fan on the shelf containing all of my external drives. It doesn't take much to keep them cool. Just like your CPU, the aluminum heatsink draws out the heat and the fan blows it away. There will be slight audible fan noise whether internal or external. A low fan setting typically works fine.And keep in mind, with a new hard drive you must visit the Disk Management applet (Microsoft) to initialize the drive or Windows File Explorer won't see it.This enclosure also doesn't force the DLNA/DRM media restrictions of modern pre-assembled external USB and NAS drive units.REVIEWS:I read all of the Amazon negative reviews and most or all of them seem to refer to a different enclosure, not this one. This does not have an eSATA port; Is not made of plastic; YES, it gets hot (as it should) when the hard drive gets hot; You must initialize a new drive no matter where you install it; Does NOT have a fan; Should work with any SATA II/III drive; Transfers much, MUCH faster than 23-MB/s; etc.One reviewer even expected the unit to arrive WITH a hard drive inside. Another states that the drive won't spin without the USB cable connected.....could be true, drives DO spin down when not in use, but I can't figure out why anyone would want to run the drive when it's not connected to anything???!?You want it to work with systems other than Windows or Mac OS...do your homework before ordering ANY computer product.>>> This is a VERY nice unit!I recommend this to my customers. I build computer and network systems for home and small business.CLARIFICATION: The slide-in tray holding the (bottom side of) the hard drive is Plastic, but the metal top of the HDD faces the aluminum enclosure case, assisting with the transfer of heat.

So, the enclosure is nice in that the outer shell is an aluminum-type material. The inner tray, however, is plastic. And since it's such a tight squeeze (don't get me wrong, the drive fits comfortably well--it's not like I had to shove it in there--there's just not much breathing room around the drive), and there's only airflow at the front of the unit, the drive does run a bit hot to the touch, which I'm not very fond of.I used this enclosure to house a Seagate IronWolf 10TB HDD in order to back up my NAS before I had to shut it down for the first time in 3 years in order to move it to a new location. So it was copying files for a good long while.If all you're doing are short, small, occasional transfers, you should be fine. Even for my purposes, it ran a bit hotter than I would like, BUT, it worked fine. So, I would buy it again. If you're going to be doing constant reading/writing from the unit, then I would look for something more suitable.

Installation of a 3.5 inch drive could not easier, and I had this up and running right away. I am getting 250MB/s write speeds on a 10TB Seagate drive. Make sure you have the correct USB 3.1 Gen 2 input on your computer. I originally had this enclosure connected to a dock that was only USB 3.0 and I was getting 40 MB/s speeds. Direct connection to the computer solved this problem.It has a helpful (but way too bright!) blue indicator light. The case does not do much to soften the sounds of the drive, so you will hear it clunking away. The case is aluminum and feels well built. As others have mentioned, there is no fan in this case to help cool the drive. Heat can cause drive failure, so this is concerning. The upright position is probably best for heat dissipation. I would not stack these things on top of each other. I've only been using it for one day of very heavy use so far.

perfect and durable

This is a good enclosure, but not a great one. I got it to house a surplus WD Black 3.5" drive which runs hot. I was hoping there would be more ventilation, and a metal-to-metal heat path from the drive to the aluminum case. The drive mounts to a plastic tray, which then slides into the metal case. I trust it will continue to work, in normal StarTech fashion, but I'll probably make sure it's in the flow of a fan if I use it extensively.BTW, the AC Infinity Multi Fans (example, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G059G86) are great for anything that might need a bit of help keeping cool. Highly recommended!

Works great for HDDs, actually tried a couple enclosures which were not showing my 4tb WD green at all, this one was very much plug and play. The build quality is excellent, it comes with all the screws which is great and not as common as I'd hoped. Overall it does what it says and does it well. A little bit pricier than competing products but you certainly get what you pay for.

I have an internal 8TB He drive I wanted to move to an external enclosure. After installing the drive, Windows started hanging indefinitely during startup while the activity light on the enclosure would flicker constantly. The longest hang was about 15 minutes. I didn't let it finish to see how long it would go before I gave up and flipped off the power on the enclosure. As soon as I did that, Windows finished starting just fine.I moved the same drive to a different enclosure and all issues ceased. The drive is working great. Will be returning this enclosure.Final thought - I'd love for one of these enclosures to feel solid and even a little heavy. Give me real aluminum fins for cooling. This thing feels thin and cheap.Final final thought - S.M.A.R.T. did work, which was nice.