With large hard drives commonplace these days, the only thing that can realistically back up hundreds of gigs of data is another hard drive. The easiest and most cost effective option is a removable hard drive. This way the data backup is accomplished, and then the removable hard drive can be stowed away for safekeeping, ideally in another location. In fact when my own computer’s hard drive crashed recently, the only thing that “saved the day” was that my removable drive had most (but not all!) of my data to be reloaded onto my new system. To sum it up, a removable drive is cheap insurance and a necessity for anyone with data worth keeping.
There are tons of companies out there that sell countless variations of the USB removable hard drive. Sizes vary depending on whether they utilize the full size 3.5” desktop drives, or the smaller 2.5” notebook drives. While almost all support USB transfers, some also support other more exotic hookups like Ethernet, Firewire, or external SATA. Some derive their power from the USB port, while others plug directly into the wall. Software packages and cooling systems vary as well from the absent to the robust. Finally, some packages come fully assembled and ready to go, while others require some assembly on the user’s end.
With that background, we turn our attention to Ultra’s external hard drive solution. Ultra is a computer hardware manufacturer that makes a wide variety of accessories and computer gear. They are based in Ohio, and are well known for their power supplies, which I previously had a positive experience with.
Ultra’s solution is based around a “put your own hard drive in” kit. In my view, this approach has several merits. By the user obtaining the hard drive, it keeps the total cost of ownership down, especially if we get the hard drive at an inexpensive price (this is pretty easy as there are hard drives constantly on sale at plenty of online and brick & mortar retailers). In my case, I have several hard drives sitting around that are ideal candidates to get a “second life” as external USB drives. While I wouldn’t build a new desktop system around a 120 or 160 GB IDE drive, they’re still plenty fast and capacious enough for backup duties. Also, with a kit like this, I can upgrade the contained drive much easier than with a preassembled product where I’ll have to replace the entire product to increase the size of the storage. Also, at times when a hard drive gets corrupted, it’s significantly easier to hook the drive up externally to a working desktop to reformat it, than to work with old fashioned DOS tools with it installed in a desktop. While there are tools specifically designed to do that, any external enclosure will get the job done. Finally, maybe I’m just a frustrated engineer, but I definitely like the idea of making something with my own two hands. For all of the aforementioned reasons, a USB external hard drive enclosure should be in any serious computer user’s bag of tricks.
Ultra actually provided me with two kits for this review. The first is the Stackable 3.5” Hard Drive Enclosure for USB 2.0 and Firewire. The kit includes the drive case, a power adapter, the required screws, some foam dampeners, a manual, plastic feet, adapters to help it stand upright, software for Win 98 machines, and surprisingly, both USB and Firewire cables. I say surprisingly because the printer manufacturers stopped including the cables a while ago with their products. This enclosure retails for $59.
The key element in a hard drive enclosure kit is the case. Ultra’s case is a matte black plastic. I especially like the compact size. When assembled it is just large enough to enclose the 3.5” drive which makes it a nice and tidy package. This makes it easy to transport and store. Also, it can either be used vertically with the included plastic holders, or horizontally with the included rubberized feet. If we plan to use more than one of these drives, (insert some “Home Improvement” grunting sounds here along with the audience chanting “more storage”) we can stack them on top of each other to get some serious storage within a small desktop footprint.
I had my 160 GB hard drive picked out, and I set it to “solitary master” on the jumper settings. The enclosure supports ATA 66, 100 and 133 drives up to 750 GB which covers anything you’re likely to have around. At first the connections didn’t seem to match up with the drive case, until I realized that I was supposed to mount it upside down. I wouldn’t have guessed that, and the manual didn’t explicitly say it, but the image provided in the manual does go along with it. I connected both the power, and the IDE cables. The drive is screwed in for stability, and then the case fits back together. The case is secured closed with two matching black screws. The entire operation took me less than ten minutes.
With the hard drive enclosure ready to go, I worked on the wires. Ultra provides a power supply for the enclosure, and it has a black brick to stick into the wall; it’s the kind that will block a few plugs on a regular surge strip so you may want to use an extender to avoid that. Then I chose whether to use the USB or the Firewire connections. While USB is a little quicker (480 vs 400 mbps) that Firewire, I chose the Firewire cable and headed for my desktop. On large file transfers, I love the bulletproof stability that Firewire provides, but either will get the task accomplished. Also, if we have more than one of these suckers, we can daisy chain them together via the Firewire ports so that we only have to connect one wire to the desktop.
I plugged in the Ultra enclosure to the wall, and the Firewire cable to the desktop. After connecting, I hit the power switch on the rear (something that these drives should all have, but too many don’t). Without any fanfare, the drive was connected, and I access the hard drive from my desktop. There is a series if three blue LED’s for power, and red ones for drive activity. Also, unlike some competing products, there is a 3 cm fan on the rear to cool the hard drive. My normally quiet hard drive remained quiet with the rubberized plastic case functioning in a noise dampening role. While I didn’t clock it to the second, the drive transferred mp3’s at a rate of around a gig a minute, which is consistent with what I see from external hard drives.
The one limiting factor of Ultra’s hard drive enclosure is that we need to use an IDE drive. This is not a big deal as most of us have extras of this specification, and these are easy enough to find on sale as retailers clear their inventory of the older standard which in the end isn’t being eliminated too soon. On the other hand, the latest hard drive standard is SATA. These serial ATA drives feature faster speeds, and also have much thinner cables which make them easier to route without impeding airflow. Currently, while all modern motherboards support them, there are only a handful of external enclosures available to handle these SATA drives. Fortunately, Ultra makes one to enclose these newer drives.
The second provided product is the Ultra 3.5” Stackable Hard Drive Enclosure- USB 2.0 & eSATA. It retails for the same $59.99 as the previous kit. It is designed to be stackable with the other hard drive enclosures. It also has a matte black plastic finish, and the same blue and red LED’s. From the front, it basically looks the same as the other Ultra 3.5” Stackable Hard Drive Enclosure.
Installation of the hard drive is similar, but of course, the SATA connections are smaller to connect the hard drive to. This enclosure also has an external power supply, a fan, and an on/off switch. The SATA version has a ubiquitous USB 2.0 port, but trades in its Firewire port for an eSATA (the “e” stands for external) connection. These promise to be faster than just about any other port out there currently, and the real limiting factor becomes the speed of the drive itself. The problem is that very few motherboards have it built in, and few of us have the add on boards to put these ports into our systems. Still, it likely will replace the “great idea, but never too popular” Firewire port, so down the road we’ll see at least some higher end gear with this speedy port.
In the meantime, Ultra includes everything needed to connect this drive via SATA. In the kit comes an adapter that fits into a PCI slot of a case. One end has an eSATA port. It is attached to a length of SATA cabling that fits right into a SATA port on the motherboard. With this simplistic adapter, any computer with a spare SATA port on the motherboard can turn it into an eSATA port. Ultra also includes an eSATA cable, as well as a USB cable for notebook users. I also like the standard size of the case that can stack both the newer and older drive enclosures which look great and just scream “power computer user” from across the room.
While I haven’t used every hard drive enclosure on the market, these Ultra kits are among the best, and affordable compared to what I see when I walk down the aisle recently at Microcenter. While it would seem obvious, that they have an on/off switch and a cooling fan, too often their competitors omit these basic yet essential features. Their sleek design, bright LED’s and compact size allow them to go head to head with any factory made drive kit, and if we compare prices, the Ultra gear with a hard drive already owned is very affordable storage. These easy to assemble kits from Ultra make a great project that results in a very usable piece of hardware.
–Jonas
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