Vantec NexStar 3 NST-360U2-BL 3.5-Inch IDE to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (Midnight Blue)

Worked like a charm. A fantastic purchase. Installation was a snap. Just take your time. The LED wire most mention wasn't connected to the housing so I never risked any damage. I had an old 40Gb IDE drive and within 10 minutes I was dragging files to it. A very nice looking, high quality device. On/off switch is easily accessible. Even the drive light looks looks good. I combined it with my Philips DVD player with a USB port and it works like a charm. I now have 70+ hours of .avi video to watch on demand. I liked it so much I just bought a second black one with the SATA connection for back ups to a 500GB drive. 5 stars at any price.

This HD enclosure is fantastic.. I would absolutely buy it again! It was a snap to get hooked up and XP recognized the drive automatically. Once installed, my drive is in there securely and the whole thing feels very sturdy. The color is not quite as deep as I thought, but it is still pretty sleek-looking and shiny, plus there is an electric blue LED on the front panel that blinks when the drive is working. As far as temperature goes, I've been really impressed so far. I ran my drive overnight and another time while I was away at work, and both times the case was just barely warm to the touch, not hot at all. My laptop gets hotter, by far. All in all, a great buy! I highly recommend.

What I like most about this one compared to what I had is that it has no fan and is therefore very quiet. There is enough metal surface area to keep it cool (even to the touch). Nice design too, although that was secondary for me. I have mine laying flat (under the monitor) and it works well in that position. All in all, a solid performer. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars overall is the power supply (wall wart). It is a bit bulky and doesn't have a very long cable. I had to use an extension cord to place it close enough so that the cable would reach. All my other accessories (speakers, USB hubs, etc.) have longer power supply cables.

I bought this product because I have a few extra hard drives around and wanted a way to use them externally. This product does the trick for that but does not win me over completely. It is a little more cumbersome than I realized and although I have a place for it, it does take up a lot of room. I was thinking I could hot swap hard drives in this and while you can do that without rebooting your computer, it may take longer than you anticipated to swap the drive out. There are 4 screws that secure the hard drive in place and then another 2 to secure the case together. Because of the different size screws you will need 2 different screw drivers. I run Vista 64 bit and the disc that comes with this product does not support this platform. I was upset because it says Vista Compatible and yet they sent me a disc with drivers that I cannot use. Given the chance to purchase this product again I would not do so. In theory it sounds like a wonderful solution but the practality of it does not equal out.

If you own a Wii U (specially the basic model) you know that a External Hard Drive will be needed soon enough... I decided to purchase my first External Enclosure & use an old IDE HDD & Picked this beauty up! Worked flawlessly (the disc that is included was not needed for the PC NOR for the Wii U) I was able to hook it up to my PC transfer all my data before formatting it on the Wii U. Money well spent! PS: It does seem to get hot because the HDD is a oldie but keeping it in a well ventilated area you can't notice it (also makes some noise sometimes but not enough to notice often)

Mounted my IDE drive in the case. Yes it is tight but everything fits. Followed all directions but neither Win XP nor Win 7 64bit could recognize this drive. Have sent several emails to the company support and they have answered them all. But they were no help because it still doesn't work and their only answer is " It should". I am not a novice at this and have been building computers for many years but this unit has me stymied. I would send it back but I would have more in shipping than the unit costs. 2/9/11 Revision. According to the manual you should set drive jumpers to "master". Well this wasn't working so I removed the "master" jumper and suddenly the drive works as it should. I now give five stars for the NexStar unit but only one star to tech support for not suggesting this.

There is a big sloppy excessive glob of hardened glue that hold the LED lead into a track. Because it is already a very tight fit to insert the HD into the enclosure, this glob of glue makes it a difficult if not impossible task. I had to carefully pull the LED lead out of the track (breaking the glue seal) and then carefully chip off some of the excess hardened glue before I could install my hard drive into the enclosure. Thereafter all went well and the product works great.

After 10 years of use my computer from college decided to die on me. I scrapped everything from it except the hard drive which had all my documents, photos and other keepsakes. When I bought a new computer I found I couldn't install my old hard drive in it because it didn't have the connections for an IDE hard drive. Enter the Vantec NexStar 3 to bridge that gap. It took me a few minutes to place my old hard drive in, mostly because I didn't want to damage it, the connectors or the wires but once everything was in the enclosure it was smooth sailing. The best part is there's no additional software that needs to be installed to use this. Just plug in the USB and power cord and the drive will show up as a removable device. I also love the sturdy aluminum casing and the color (I got the blue; they come in blue, red and black). This was a great, inexpensive way to keep my old files without downloading various storage programs or reformatting my old files and it frees up the storage space on my new computer for new photos and documents. Well worth the investment.