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Akasa Integral 3.5in External HDD Enclosure |
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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Saturday, 16 June 2007 |
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Page 1 of 3
Thanks to Akasa for the product sample.
A few days ago we took a look at Akasa's 2.5" Integral enclosure. Today we have their larger but very similar (and a lot more mainstream) 3.5" case up for evaluation. Large capacity 3.5" hard drives currently offer the most storage for the least amount of money so it comes as no surprise that relatively mobile external USB enclosures are all the rage. Prices vary quite a bit but $30 will get you a good case. Let's see if Akasa's offering is up to the task.
The drive ships in the retail package shown above. Our model was "silver" (unpainted aluminum); a black anodized version is also available. Additionally, Akasa has external enclosures for 5.25" drives (naturally we'll be reviewing one of those shortly as well) which look slightly different but still carry the Integral name and have power/activity LED strips.
The kit includes the enclosure, a plastic stand with rubbery non-slip feet, an installation guide, a driver CD (unnecessary for computers running up-to-date Windows XP), two-part power cord with transformer, and a "data flash" clear/silver braided USB cable. Although the wiring and transformer slightly detract from the portability of the drive, every 3.5" enclosure currently on the market works this way. The plastic stand sits firmly on almost any surface but there's no grip on the inside so the enclosure tends to slide back and forth a bit. Some additional rubber grips would alleviate this.
Akasa went with a minimalist approach when designing their Integral series of enclosures. There are three parts to the entire case: the main aluminum shell, an acrylic front panel, and a sliding acrylic back panel. On each side is a clear plastic strip with indentations to refract light coming from rear-mounted LEDs, in effect creating a lighted strip. The rear has a USB2.0 connection, a power plug, and an on/off switch. There are also a few vent holes present. Notice that no fans are present. Many 3.5" cases use 40mm fans to cool down the drives inside them. I assume Akasa decided against any fans in order to allow for a quieter and much smaller enclosure; how this impacts heat output is something we'll see in our thermal test.
Removing the inside rack couldn't be any easier. There's a latch on the underside of the front panel; once you slide it to the left it releases the rear panel which in turn slides out. The front panel isn't easily removable, but then again it doesn't need to be. The tray itself is a piece of plastic with a PCB and an 80-pin IDE ribbon along with a 4-pin molex. SATA enclosures are hard to come by and aren't really necessary; the USB2.0 interface is saturated well before even maximum ATA133 speeds are reached. IDE drives are also marginally cheaper.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 16 June 2007 )
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