ET-CS2XMESU2-BK 2.5" SATA to USB/eSATA Portable Hard Drive Enclosure (Tool-less)

You need to have a pin, toothpick, or paperclip to insert into the keyhole to pop the latch. But once you get it open, it is really easy to add a drive or remove a drive. I use this to recover laptop data when machines fail or a drive needs to be replaced. So USB2 is just fine. But if you are looking for something fast, look for something with USB3.

As advertised, works right out of the box, all functionality available and working.My only reason for buying this: Many 2.5" enclosures supporting both USB and eSATA and without an external power supply, have the same problem: When you want to use the eSATA connection, the drive has no power, so you use the USB "Y" connector provided, and what happens? The computer recognizes it as a USB drive, eSATA is never active.Not with this one. The "Y" connector is strictly for USB connections. You can connect to either one or two USB ports on the computer (one will work fine with most newer computers providing enough power, but you might as well use both), and the micro-USB connector on the other end connects to the enclosure.BUT, for eSATA transfers, there is a separate POWER cable: One end is a regular USB, the other is an AC mini-plug, which connects to an AC connector on the enclosure. Then, you connect the eSATA cable, and since this is the only data connection, your computer won't confuse it with anything but, and will use it as a SATA drive. Note, however, that the drive in the enclosure MUST be a SATA drive.Blue LED on the enclosure confirms power, red LED confirms data-transfer activity.Note to Linux users: The box lists the compatible Operating Systems, which does not include Linux, but it's working just fine on my Ubuntu Lucid-64.If your system does not recognize the eSATA connection, try booting up WITH the drive already connected via eSATA (and the "Y" plug for power, of course).If you're using Linux, AND you plug the eSATA connector AFTER you've booted up, here's what you can do:1. Install the scsitools package (available in Ubuntu Lucid, not sure about other distros).2, Run the script "rescan-scsi-bus.sh" as root (without the quotes of course), which will force a re-scan of all disk drives, and should confirm whether your eSATA drive is visible to the system. On my system it's in the /sbin directory, so I run "sudo /sbin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh"3. You should now be able to find the drive in the /dev directory, and mount it from there. However, on my system as soon as I run dolphin (which does not require kde, I run it under gnome), it is recognized almost immediately, even though there is no icon for it on the desktop.Alternately, I've been using Ubuntu's Dolphin which always shows the attached drive WHEN CONNECTED VIA eSATA (on the "Places" pane) - Click on it, Ubuntu will prompt you for your password, and it will connect.Hope this helps. As for actual performance, so many factors are involved, YMMV, but you can count on eSATA to always be faster that USB.And kudos to the manufacturer for making a key that is so easily stored (in small catches right under the plastic base), and so easily replaceable if you lose it - all you need is an inch of straighten-out paper clip to open the latch.Enjoy!

This produce is in theory very cool. It looks cool, and its description is cool (including the part about being 'tool-less').My experience was less than cool and more than 'tool-less'. It take a 'tool' to open the latch, so the claim of 'tool-less' by the manufacturer is inaccurate IMO.My biggest complaint was that I had to inserted and reinserted my drive 3 to 4 times before the contacts mated and my computer recognized the USB drive. At that point my trust in the product vanished.It also requires a USB connection (via the wye cable) to the DC input to run the drive when connected to eSATA. The manual for my motherboard claims this should be unnecessary and some other enclosure manufacturers do not include a DC input (i.e. Acomdata, who I will try shortly).Long story short, I returned the EagleTech and ordered an Acomdata Tango.

A brief overview of what I was trying to accomplish: I needed a case for an SSD drive that had an eSata port.Started off with a case I got made by Comkia, SSD would not work with the eSata port, but would work fine over USB (tried this on several machines). I have a SATA to eSata adapter that I used for testing purposes - no enclosure for that - and it works fine, so I know that the SSD and eSata aren't having some weird conflict. Decided it must be the case.Bought two of the enclosure in this advertisement. The first one seemed to power on fine, though since its an SSD, theres no way to tell since it doesn't spin up. Connect the eSata and nothing. Stuck a normal 2.5" hard drive in there and it works fine. wtf... so I pulled the thing apart and just connected the board fromt he enclosure straight to the SSD drive without the enclosure - works fine. WTF... put it all back together, nada. I noticed that the sata connectors are a pretty tight fit FYI...Grabbed the second case, dropped the SSD in there, works fine.Not sure what to say really except that 1 out of 2 was no good, in my opinion thats a quality control problem and I can't very well recommend these things..

Not a bad little case. Easy to open (using the pin attached to the bottom) and easy to install.I have to say though, I didn't love that they forgot the USB power cable which is completely necessary when you're using eSata. Via USB it's self powering but via eSata you have to use a separate cable that takes USB power and supplies it to the drive through a tiny DC connector.Now, this isn't usually going to be a problem unless you happen to need the eSata connection and they forgot to include the power cable (or realistically for most, it's going to the be the first thing that you lose).All in all, I kept it and still use it.