Apricorn EZ Upgrade Universal SATA Hard Drive Upgrade Kit

...is not actually for the Apricorn EZ upgrade Universal SATA hard drive upgrade kit, it is for the Iomah External enclosure for 2.5 inch SATA hard drive, which is a very similar product and does the same job.
But as I am so fed up with Ciao refusing my request for this Iomah External enclosure for 2.5 inch SATA hard drive I have decided to place this review into what I deem to be the closest post I can find, (I know I will fall foul of some ...
...just feel that this little device is well worth shouting about.

Anyway, back to MY review about the Iomah External enclosure for 2.5 inch SATA hard drive

Recently I had the pleasure of having to swap a hard drive over on a laptop, (when I say pleasure I was being a little sarcastic), but I didn’t want to go through the hassle of having to re-install every last little bit of information onto the new drive so I came up ... more

Firstly, this review is not actually for the Apricorn EZ upgrade Universal SATA hard drive upgrade kit, it is for the Iomah External enclosure for 2.5 inch SATA hard drive, which is a very similar product and does the same job.
But as I am so fed up with Ciao refusing my request for this Iomah External enclosure for 2.5 inch SATA hard drive I have decided to place this review into what I deem to be the closest post I can find, (I know I will fall foul of some rule or other but what more can I do). I just feel that this little device is well worth shouting about.

Anyway, back to MY review about the Iomah External enclosure for 2.5 inch SATA hard driveRecently I had the pleasure of having to swap a hard drive over on a laptop, (when I say pleasure I was being a little sarcastic), but I didn’t want to go through the hassle of having to re-install every last little bit of information onto the new drive so I came up with an idea.
I was going to clone the old Hard Drive onto the new Hard Drive, thus saving all the data with no hassles.
I toyed with the idea of buying an external Hard Drive and do the cloning that way, swapping all the data from the internal onto the external then back onto the new internal, (are you keeping up..?), but then I realised that that would be a lot of hassle and I’d have twice the work to do.
Then, whilst browsing the web looking for an internal hard drive to replace the rather full old one, I came across something that would make cloning the old Hard Drive a lot quicker and a lot easier, saving all my data in no time at all.
The device in question is the ‘External enclosure for a SATA internal Hard Drive’ by Iomah, with a few rather splendid extras. So I sent off for one straight away, together with the Internal Hard Drive, and waited patiently by the letter box for the goods to arrive, (I did do other things as well, like sleep, work and play).
When the enclosure arrived I opened it and was quite pleased at how it looked and the extra items which came with it…(although I had to wait an extra day for the Hard Drive, but I was in no major rush as it wasn’t my laptop I was working on, but once I had both items I was ready to go).

** INSIDE THE BOX I FOUND…

• The 2.5 inch SATA hard drive enclosure itself, (for 9.5mm only)
• USB connecting cables (2 of)
• Driver CD for windows 98SE
• Carrying pouch
• User manual
• Screws and a screw driver

** IT OFFERS…

• The aluminium case which is for better cooling and protection
• one touch back-up (windows only)
• Hot swappable
• Plug and play
• No driver needed (except for windows 98SE where a CD is supplied for this)
• Self powered via USB cable (supplied)
• High speed USB 2.0 data transfer, (up to 480Mbps), rate and backward compatibility USB 1.1
• Compact size

** AND IT WORKS WITH…Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista and Mac 8.6 and above.

** That’s the technical bits out of the way with….

Anyway, once I had unwrapped the unit from the recyclable cardboard packaging I quickly set about piecing the thing together, which was as easy as sliding a piece of bread into a toaster.
The ‘head’ part of the enclosure ‘clipped’ onto the main pins of the new HD with a little shove, then I simply slid the HD into the aluminium casing and pushed it together with such ease. Lastly, for the setting up part, using the tiny screw driver, supplied, I screwed the two tiny screws into there housing, taking a little caution as the screws are very very small.
Once this was all connected together the HD was protected and I was ready to begin the cloning process, knowing that all I had to do afterwards was swap the two Hard Drives over, (touch would), using the enclosure and the USB leads supplied.

** IN CONCLUSION…

This enclosure works a treat, for what it is designed for anyway. The Hard Drive slid inside with such ease, with the tiny screws keeping the whole thing sitting neatly together.
The casing never over heated at all even though it was running for a good 2 and a half hours not stop at one point, and considering it doesn’t have a fan I was quite impressed by how cool it stayed.
The USB leads supplied, which give power to the device were a good length indeed, so there was no trouble with trying to balance the enclosure right next to your PC. Ne set of leads having a two USB connecter points at one end, which I plugged into the back ports as they are nearer the motherboard and this is supposed to give a faster transfer rate. The other supplied lead had a single USB connecter and was solely used to power the drive, although I only needed the first lead as this powered the unit well enough to do the job.
When the drive inside the enclosure is in use there is a soothing little green light flickering away, letting you know that everything is running fine.

Once I had finished the cloning and then the swapping of the HD’s I now had the old Hard Drive safely inside this enclosure, tucked away inside a cupboard, which will stay there for a little while as a full back up just in case the new installed drive goes pear shaped in some way. But once I have done a full back up of the new Drive and feel confident that all is well I will then have an 80GB hard drive which I can fill with anything I want and that is a massive amount of space for all my movies and songs.

I couldn’t believe how easy this enclosure was to sort out, even though I had read reviews of people who claimed to have had problems with the tiny screws. I know they are tiny but if you don’t try and force them into position you will have no trouble at all. I screwed and unscrewed them several times and found them to fit into place each time.

What more can I say about this Hard Drive enclosure? Well, it does exactly what it is meant to do, it encloses a 2.5 inch SATA hard drive, although they do sell one which is for a 2.5 inch IDE Hard drive too, which from the looks of the pictures will work exactly the same and cost a little less than the SATA version.
But this SATA version is still at a great price from amazon, going for around £6.50 for the lot, including the leads and the nice jazzy cloth case for the enclosure to be stored in to protect it from dust.

In all, if you’re ever in the position of wanting, or having to install a larger Internal Hard drive into your laptop then this is a cheap, and easy way to create an external hard drive out of the spare internal one you have just extracted out of your laptop.

If you want to have a look at this product, and until ciao actually give me a link to the correct position, then the go to amazon and look for “ Black 2.5" USB 2.0 External Caddy/Enclosure For 2.5" Laptop SATA Hard Drive. USB Bus Powered - Pouch Included”, you can’t go wrong.

 

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