Vantec NexStar External 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure Review

What You Get

When you tear off the plastic wrap and crack open the box, you'll be greeted to everything necessary to get your new external unit up and running in no time flat. Included is the HDD enclosure, power adapter and cable, a USB cable, a Firewire cable, a driver disk, a small bag of screws and a small screwdriver.

As a side note, the manual comes on the driver disk but it is pretty simple to get everything running smoothly without it. Also, you will only need to install drivers if you run an older Win98SE system. WinME and beyond all support this device natively and no drivers will be required. If you are running something earlier than Win98SE, then save your money since USB support is not included and this device will be pretty much moot.

Since most of the included parts are self explanatory, we'll only really be delving into the hard drive enclosure itself. It really is a simple installation process, but before we go over that we'll talk a quick tour of the NexStar unit.

The business end of the enclosure has all the ports lined up neatly for your use. You'll note the presence of two Firewire ports so you can daisy chain your devices if desired. This is a feature of the IEEE1394 technology and works in a similar manner as SCSI devices.

You'll also see that all ports are clearly labeled on the top cover of the unit. While it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what type port you're working with, I can just see somebody cussing up a storm because the USB connector won't fit into a Firewire port.

Both sides of the enclosure are removable so the hard drive can be properly secured into place. Inside the enclosure is a single Molex connector and an IDE-type ribbon cable to hook into the drive being installed.