Mediasonic ProBox HD6-SU3S2 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA Aluminum Body

This is one of the more well-implemented external drive cases I've seen. The electronic assembly looks clean. Unlike some cases I've seen reviewed here, everything works as it should - the drive slips right into the connectors, mounting screws line up properly, and the case fits together snugly. Whether this is related to the fact that it's made in Taiwan (most other brands seem to be made in China), I can't say.I'm using it with a Western Digital WD30EZRS 3tb drive. Although Linux isn't listed as an officially supported OS, this case and drive combination works fine for me with Puppy Linux version 5.25 (kernel version 2.6.33) and Clonezilla 1.2.12-60 (kernel version 3.2.18-1). Clonezilla identifies it as a "very big drive." Puppy makes no comment about it, but simply handles it with aplomb.My system doesn't speak USB 3.0, so I'll leave it to others to review how well that works. But at USB 2.0 speeds be warned that this, like other similar interfaces, is no speed demon. Clonezilla took about 36 hours to back up a 500gb drive onto this unit! Once I've had a chance to test the ESATA interface, I'll update this review.It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has tried this case with drives even larger than 3tb, the largest officially supported drive.I have 2 earlier models similar to this. Both are the earlier USB 2.0 versions. One is the model with ESATA, similar to this (HD6-SU2S2), and the other is the USB only model (HD6-SU2). Neither one supports drives larger than 2tb.About 2 weeks ago, I posted a query in the Mediasonic forum, inquiring after upgrading these earlier models. Within hours, I received a reply from Mediasonic that they'd check into it. However, as of this date I've received no further response. Thus, at the moment I'd suggest caution, since I've seen some of the earlier models (HD6-SU2, HD6-SU2S2, and HD6-SU2FW) still floating around at various vendor sites. These may or may not have been upgraded to support drives over 2tb, or they may work only with some operating systems. Inquire carefully.

I have experienced random disconnects from this harddrive enclosure. Sometimes the PC will even fail to recognize the drive upon boot up requiring shutting down the drive and turning it back on again for Windows 8 Pro to recognize. I checked the connections, used different usb 3.0 ports and even swapped out USB 3.0 cables with other 3.0 cables I have and the same problem continues. The drive inside is a brand new 2TB Seagate drive from Dell that I removed as the main boot drive from a One in 27 XPS Touch. I made an SSD drive the boot drive on that machine and wanted to use this Seagate as my data drive.In short, these random disconnects makes the system unreliable for work. I had several occasions already when I tried to save a file and have gotten errors from Windows that the device no longer is available. I was able through persistence with 5 or 6 attempts to backup the data I already had on it to a Fantom 2TB USB 3.0 external and that drive works without problems. I'm not sure if I just got a dud, but I have google the problem and others on the net had similar problems with Windows 7. It's unfortunate because the enclosure really is nice, but worthless if it doesn't function the way it should. I'm grateful for Amazon's generous return policy, thanks Amazon!

I had high hopes for this enclosure, but I was destined to be disappointed.The power connector on the rear of the enclosure was defective. The drive wouldn't even power up unless you held the power cord at an angle to put pressure on the connector. Obviously these units aren't being tested at the factory.I'll return this one and try again... good thing that Amazon Prime covers the shipping costs.

Would have 5 Stars, but the product information was wrong. It is only SATA I or SATA II -- NOT SATAIII. It says I and II on the box, and if you can read the box on the picture it says the same thing. If you have 6.0Gbs SATA III Drives DO NOT BUY. If you have 3.0Gbs, then it's GREAT! Fortunately the drives I needed these for were II, so it worked out, but I was paying for and wanted II (for other drives down the road.5 STARS for CRAZY EASY SET UP. The drives came out of a old computer, slipped right in these cases (unscrew two small screws, cover comes off), put cover back on, plug into power and USB3 (or eSATA, which is what I"m using due to ports available on my rig). It comes with no instructions, but the heck of it is... it simply didn't need any. It LITERALLY takes less than 60 seconds to unscrew the case, drop in the hard drive, screw it back, and plug in the power cord and data cord.PERTURBED by the mislabeling. Would have bought something else, but am happy that these worked out. I have NEVER had any tech item work so fast and easy (except maybe the Western Digital Passports).Recap: SATA II, not III, EASY SET UP, no install, no disk, no need to format.Last thought, I was able to partition the drive I put in it. I was not expecting it to be as easy as an internal.

Needed a cheap 3.5" external drive enclosure with USB 3.0 and this fit the bill.Speeds are comparable to using a standard SATA 6.0gbps connection, actually calculated out the difference on my PC to it being 4% slower through USB 3.0. Nothing to complain about.Construction seems a little cheap. LED lens was popped out of place, wires are ran with too much slack. Just some extra care to take care of those.Hard drive WAS going to sleep on me. Disabled power management for the USB hub it was on and installed device firmware for the enclosure that prevents the drive from spinning down and haven't had an issue since. Firmware found here: http://forum.mediasonic.ca/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1519 Mine was specifically the HD6-SU3S2.