3.5" HDD External Enclosure - Recommendations

[Maccer101]

I want to either buy a budget External HHD enclosure for around £10-£15, to put a used SATA drive in. Most of the ones on ebay look bad (with high postage), There is a Sumvision one on Ebuyer for £12 that looks OK.


I also want to get a reasonably priced media player/recorder enclosure, like the Sumvision one one ebuyer for £45. I don't have a media centre PC but fancy having a device to record/playback TV that has a 3.5" desktop HDD so I can scale it up as and when I want. I need the recording facility and there doesn't seem to be much out there sub £70. As again I'm on a budget


Anywho! feedback/advice on an enclosure & media recorder enclosure wold be most welcome

Thanks All

PS I cannot post URLs on this thread as I don't have enough posts yet, sorry

[peterb]

I've used the sumvision ones for IDE. Not particularly pretty but they do the job.

If you want someting a bit better looking, try the Akasa. It is SATA/eSATA/IDE

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[Funkstar]

I know you said budget and are looking at about £12, but I would jighly recomend the Akasa ones suggested by Peter too.

Well made, very flexible as far as connection options. Also the power plug is nice and robust. I have a few IcyBox cases and the power connector is rubbish (also had a couple of power bricks die on me).

[Skyboat]

I just sent a Sumvision IDE caddy back to ebuyer under DSR due to not working with my old Maxtor I had lying around. Probably a moot point but it could've been DOA or just not compatible with my HDD (it was pretty old, but then so is the IDE standard). I would advise looking at spending a few quid more to get something better known.

[Funkstar]

I've used my Akasa to pull data off a couple of old 8GB maxtors, and old 1.2GB and a 4GB I think

[Maccer101]

Thanks, I'll maybe loosen the purse strings and look at an Akasa. Any thoughts on a Media Player/Recorder HDD enclosure?

[Funkstar]

Don't have any experience with them, sorry

[Koolpc]

I have an Akasa one. Awesome is the word.

[Maccer101]

Just checked out the Akasa one on the link PeterB provided it looked like a good deal but no info on max gb capacity size HDD support on the website, anyone know if it can support 500-750gb SATA, worried that it may have a lower limit as its IDE/SATA compatable?

[Funkstar]

No problem.

I've used mine with 1TB drives without issue.