Akasa Integral P2 E-SATA AK-ENP2SATA-BK > Reviews > In case you need extra storage!

Author's product rating:   

Reliability	Excellent
Performance	Good
Compatibility	Diverse
Ease of Installation	Average
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	big security benefit, look good, work well, easy to fit
Disadvantages:	get very hot

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I've had two of these units for about 8 months now. As my new computer has three hard drives built in, it wasn't feasible to put two of my old drives from my old computer in the new case buy I couldn't be bothered transfering so much data (plus the old drives were 350 and 400 gig anyway) and so I decided to just my put old drives in a couple of these and increase my storage and solve my problem in an easy and cheap way.

These external cases are quite neat looking. I have one in black and the other in silver so as to keep them seperate. They look neat on the desktop and take very little space. They have a metal case which looks quite modern and can be any one of three or four colours (silver, black, blue and red (I think)).

On the front end of the case is a black face with the name of the manufacturer on it 'Integral'. This looks okay normally but when switched on flickers between red and blue as the drive is accessed. When it does this it looks great. At the business end of the case is the USB connection which connects to the computer. It also houses the connection for the power supply few by a small transformer (supplied). There is also a power switch so you needn't have it switched on all the time.

Fitting the hard drive is easy enough. Doesn't take a brain surgeon. You simply slot your hard drive in and fix it with a couple of screws. Attach the strip connector and the power connector, gently push it into the exterior case (needs a little patience) and then just fasten the remaining screws. Its a little like pushing in a drawer a little over packed with clothes. You need to make sure its all tucked in.

The unit comes with a set up disk but my machine didn't need it. It picked them up as being external hard drives and accessed them instantly. The caddy will accept SATA or IDE drives and comes with a Sata cable and a usb cable. It can transfer at up to 1.5gb per second although you would have to have a very fast set-up to run at those speeds.

In use, it is a really great option rather than going to the trouble of transfering data to just add it to your existing set up. Makes life mcuh simpler especially if you are buying a new computer. It means that you don't have to worry about scrubbing you old drives if you get rid of it so there is a great security issue which you avoid.

My biggest gripe, in fact my only gripe, with these units is how hot they become. You could cook an egg on them. I stand my cups of tea on them to stay warm which it does. It's well worth switching them off when not in use.

Data has always transfered quickly with no problems and the units bring up the normal windows 'What do you want to do with this drive' window allowing me to explore it, play it, etc.

Another benefit with these nifty little devices are that they are stackable. You can either stand them in rows (they have little plastic stands) or stack them on top of each other. I prefer the latter.

I paid about £24 each for mine and they were well worth the money. As I said, they are easy enough to fix together and the instructions are clear enough. A good buy if you need to access extra storage or don't want to get rid of your old drives.