Customer Reviews:
 Painless way to save your laptop hard drive. November 7, 2008
In brief, this enclosure is for 2.5 inch ATA drives that are 9.5 mm thick or thinner. It worked well out of the box and no software had to be installed on my Macintosh computer for it to work. Transfer rate is about 3 GB per minute. The indicator light flashes with drive activity. The drive is powered by the usb cable, but if you have an unpowered hub a second usb to power adapter cable is included which will provide enough extra power to run the enclosure.
In greater detail, this review is applicable to Macintosh laptop computers. Terminology for hard drives is somewhat confusing. I spent some time reading about it, so here is a brief synopsis. A common standard of drive is the ATA specification. This stands for Advanced Technology Attachment. Another acronym that means the same thing is IDE. That actually stands for Integrated Drive Electronics. IDE should mean any standard where the hardware drive electronics are on the hard drive rather than a separate card, but for historical reasons IDE now is a synonym for ATA. The ATA standard uses 16 parallel wires to move the data from the drive to the computer motherboard. A newer standard is called SATA which stands for Serial ATA. ATA is sometimes called PATA now to clearly distinguish it from SATA. So now there are two major standards, SATA and ATA. ATA, PATA, and IDE all refer to the same type of drive.
This enclosure is for ATA drives, which are also known as IDE and PATA drives. There is another Macally product for SATA drives, but this is not that product.
I had an old Titanium PowerBook G4 that blew it's power manager circuit. On the TiPowerbook G4 the power management circuit is on the motherboard and it really didn't make sense to put $300 into the machine to rescue it. The hard drive had some files I wanted to save, so this enclosure has come in very handy.
The Macally Enclosure accepts the 2.5 inch drive from the Titanium Powerbook. After removing the hard drive from the computer you just remove the interconnector from the hard drive and push the hard drive onto the connector on the circuitboard in the enclosure. The circuitry in the enclosure converts the drive into a USB hard drive. When I finished the assembly I connected the enclosure to my computer with the enclosed usb cable and the drive was recognized as a volume. There is a software cd that comes with the drive, but on the Mac it doesn't seem to be needed.
All Titanium Powerbooks use 9.5 mm thick 2.5 inch ATA drives. There were 4 models of the PowerBook G4, called Mercury, Onyx, Ivory, and Antimony. All use the ATA standard drives that will work with this enclosure.
 Excellent Enclosure! September 18, 2008
Easy to use, and offers very good protection for your hard drive. What more could you want from an enclosure? It keeps the drive safe, somewhat cool, and provides a USB 2.0 connection.
Just make sure that you order the right kind for your hard drive! Some models are IDE, and some are SATA, and they're not interchangeable.
Personally, I think Macally makes one of the best enclosures out there. Far better than the no-name, off-brand ones you find all over online.
READ BEFORE PURCHASING THIS ENCLOSUSRE!!! May 29, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Although it is not specified anywhere in the product details, this enclosure is for an IDE hard drive, NOT a SATA hard drive. Make sure you know what kind of hard drive you have before buying this, or any other enclosure. I ordered it hoping it might be for SATA drives, but alas, it is not. This glaring omission aside, looks like a nice little enclosure for an IDE HD.
Solid enclosure! November 12, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I chose this for a drive I had lying around, thinking that a cheap enclosure would put it to use. I was very happy with my choice (especially for thirteen bucks, at the time).
The enclosure is solid -- aluminum center and plastic ends. It has a sleek, simple look, with no large manufacturer name like many others. The plug is a standard mini USB, so any cord will work. My laptop powers it fine with the included single plug USB cable (I believe some require two).
On the whole, I'm quite pleased. It's traveled around with me in my laptop bag, worked in every computer I've needed it to, and looks great.
Does the job, nice little enclosure November 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was my first "build your own external drive" attempt, and it was painless. The DIY instructions for inserting your own drive are simple and clear.
I had trouble with one screw hole not being threaded *quite* right, but it's secure, regardless. I wish they'd built it with slightly longer screws, but the included hardware is sufficient.
Data transfer speeds are as expected with USB 2.0 (and a 5400 RM drive). The included USB cable was a nice bonus.
So far, this has been a solid product, and I'd recommend it to anyone, even first-timers. :-)
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