ORICO 3.5'' Hard Drive Enclosure for HDD/SSD USB 3.0 to SATA Vertical External Hard Drive Docking Station Support UASP Up to 16 TB-7688U3

This enclosure is housing a WD Red 12 TB attached via USB 3 to my NAS for media storage. Been working flawlessly for over a month now going 24/7. I tried stressing out the system a little by viewing a handful of movies in HD via Plex while copying and writing to the drive at the same time. It warmed up pretty good but the aluminum housing seemed to be able to dissipate the heat and there was zero indication of any performance degradation. While that’s probably more of an attestation to the WD Red drive, the enclosure cooled down very quickly after I was done. My Plex server will probably never have to perform to that level under normal use, so I’d say this was a good purchase.

I have been moving and transitioning 3.5" drives lately. I needed an easy way to temporarily connect a drive without having to dig into the case and mess with mounting and power and data cables. Undo two screws in the Orico and slide the drive right in (and put the screws back in). I had this connected within 2 minutes. It works very well. It even comes with its own little screwdriver. I have the unit right on top of the computer case. I think the cable is long enough so you probably place it on a desktop if it is close by. The little stand that comes with it works well.

So, I received this and used it to back up a network share that I'm getting ready to upgrade. Transfer to the unit to a spinning drive was good. I filled a 4TB drive up fairly quickly, which is great. The concern that I have with the unit is that there is no ventilation. I ended up leaving the case off the drive during my transfer, and I periodically felt the hard drive, which was quite warm. My concern with this unit is that the drive being inside the chassis with no ventilation will cause the drive temp to skyrocket, either causing the disk to fail outright, or at the very least shorten the lifespan of the drive. I don't have a way of testing the temperatures, but will consider getting an IR laser thermometer and will probably do some temperature tests - both uncovered, and inside the case to see how much hotter the drive gets. That may affect the star rating I've given this unit.Update:I performed some temperature tests using a hard drive monitoring application on the disk (a Western Digital WD4000F9YZ 4TB) with the case off and with it on. I started the tests with the drive cold (at room temp). I ran a 'butterfly read test' to simulate drive activity such as running backup or a restore, which is what I'll likely use the drive for. Here are the results in degrees C:Cover Off Temp Cover On Temp0m 25C 25C10m 35C 42C20m 38C 44C30m 40C 46C40m 41C 46C50m 42C 47C60m 42C 47CAs you can see from the numbers, the case adds a 5 degree increase in temperature. The software showed the disk in 'green' status while using the unit with the case off for the entire hour of the test. When using the unit with the case on, when the temp reached 43C, the status changed to 'yellow'. This drive has a rated operational maximum of 55C, which is probably why it changed there. Because I ran the unit until the temp held steady for two successive readings (a 20 minute timespan), during this test, I'm not sure if it would get any hotter if I continued after an hour. At this point, I'm going to leave the review at 4 stars, because it's definitely a good unit in general, and a 10% increase in heat doesn't warrant downgrading my review. If something changes, and real-world usage shows a higher increase in temps, that might change, though.

Great product would buy again

I wanted to like this. The build quality is absolutely amazing, and it comes with a small phillips screwdriver that is really nice. But it doesn't work with my Windows 7. I tried updating the firmware by going here: https://www.orico.cc/us/product/detail/3271.htmlYou have to use that exact link, the other links have bad software and it won't load properly, despite appearing to be the same download. Beware. Try that link above and update your firmware if you are having trouble.Still after the firmware update this thing is useless. It could be that my hard disk is not compatible, it's an old 4TB Seagate NAS commercial SATA drive for NAS raid, and I have no problems with it, and no SMART error or any errors or bad sectors, and it works perfectly inside my computer with either the SATA or the hardware raid SATA cable connection in my PC. But this Orico is suppppper slow with the drive. I may have got a bad one, or it's just not compatible with my drive, or these are just junk. I'm not sure. The reviews look good, so maybe it's just a lemon.

This enclosure was easy to put together and works well. I don't have temperature data handy but it seems to keep my drive at the same temperature as a bulkier enclosure with a fan that I have.

My external Seagate Backup Plus hard drive stopped working and wouldn't power up. I took the external housing case apart and removed the hard drive, installing it into this new ORICO 3.5 hard drive enclosure. It powered up the first time and my computer immediately recognized the drive. It works perfectly and I would definitely recommend this enclosure case if your current external drive has stopped working. Instead of getting rid of the drive, at least give this case a try to see if it works. I did and I couldn't be happier!

Pros: works with USB3.0 (not all do, even when advertised as such); aluminum case feels solid; LED is on the side rather than the backCons: no mechanical connection of drive to case apart from SATA connections: I guess you just have to hope it doesn't rattle around in there; USB and power cable are quite short.