Akasa Noir Max 2.5″ Hard Drive Enclosure Review

Hard drive enclosures can be very useful devices, you may just want it as a cheap way of using an old hard drive as a backup storage drive, or you may need it to save all those important documents from a laptop hard drive that just won’t boot any more. There are many other reasons for using such an enclosure and as you have probably guessed we are taking a look at one of many variants on the standard and usually quite plain Hard Disk Drive Enclosure, in this case it is of the 2.5″ only variant, but does take advantage of the latest USB 3.0 interface for hopefully impressive performance.

Akasa have recently been introducing lots of USB 3.0 devices, in fact there are 10 new products on the 2.5″ enclosure page of the Akasa website, nearly all of these are of the Super Speed variety and have all been released in the last few months.

Akasa have specifically released this Noir Max model so that the new 1Tb 2.5″ HDD can be used which are 12.5mm thick compared to the standard 9.5mm. As such this product is even more compatible than any other 2.5″ Hard Drive enclosure out there on the market currently.

Specifications

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 100%]
[TR]
[TD]Application[/TD]
[TD]External notebook HDD enclosure[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Designed for[/TD]
[TD]2.5” SATA HDD and SSD[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Max HDD height[/TD]
[TD]12.5mm[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Interface[/TD]
[TD]USB 3.0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Data transfer rate[/TD]
[TD]5.0 Gbps (max)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Material[/TD]
[TD]Aluminium[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]DC input[/TD]
[TD]+5V DC (from USB)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Blue LED light[/TD]
[TD]Power and data transfer indicators[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Supports[/TD]
[TD]Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
Mac OS 10.3 or higher[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD=width: 250, bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Plug & Play[/TD]
[TD]Yes[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD=width: 250, bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Hot Swappable[/TD]
[TD]Yes[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD=width: 250, bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Dimensions[/TD]
[TD]132 x 85 x18mm[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD=width: 250, bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Product code[/TD]
[TD]AK-NR2SU3-BK[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]