Home > Consumer Reviews > Sabrent SBT-EKU25 Ultra Slim USB 2.0 2.5-inch IDE/PATA Hard Drive Enclosure (Black)

I bought this enclosure for a 100gb 2.5" hard drive I had. Problem is, apparently the power supplied by the USB port is not always sufficient. I have several PCs at home, and the drive would not stay connected on any of them if I used a USB 2.0 port (drive would constantly disconnect). One of my PCs has only USB 1.0, and the drive did stay connected long enough for me to format the drive.

This enclosure seems to be more stable if you plug into USB 1 port, but that really defeats the advantage of having a USB 2.0 drive.

When reading the "troubleshooting" section of the manual, it states that drives over 30gb might not have sufficient power from the USB port. It also states that any drive that draws more than 500A cannot be powered by the USB port. You also can't use a hub, unless it is self powered, and the drive has a dedicated 5V 500A supplied to it. There is no way to supply external power to the enclosure except through the double USB cord that comes with the enclosure)

This is a very small case (just as big as the 2.5" HDD it encloses) without any cooling fan or antishock protection that would make it for the long haul... it's not for any road warrior, it works best for technicians or someone who want to use an old spare HDD left out from a notebook or may need to fix a bad HDD from a crashed notebook. Don't take it along with your gear since it won't protect your HDD that much or use it for long periods of time since the HDD can get very hot and there's no ventilation or fan but the good part is that it does work as expected with stable USB 2.0 data speeds.

The product does exactly what it is supposed to do! It is the easiest/quickest way to connect your laptop (2.5" IDE) hard drive to any computer that has a USB (works with USB1.1 and USB2.0) port. It even comes with a CD that contains driver for Windows 98.

The reason I bought this - my laptop started having video card problems within the warranty period and before I shipped the laptop off to the manufacturer I wanted to backup my data.

Sabrent has been good to me to date so far. I have had several products of theirs and each time I have been pleased, but the instructions for this product are seriously lacking. I believe they were written before Win XP ever came out and I have no clue if this will work with Vista, you'll have to read another review for that one.

It couldn't be any simpler of a device to put together though.
Open box, insert 2.5" laptop HDD and then slide together.
Insert holding screws (they give you a little screw driver for this as well)
connect the cable (double end goes to PC, you need 2 open USB ports on PC)
plug other cable end into unit and it'll power up and your PC will take a moment to recognize it then it's off to the races.

Transfer rates will be limited by the HDD that you place in the device.

I transferred over 12 gigs in like 25 minutes with a 5400rpm old as heck 20gig laptop HDD (yeah it's a 20gig, it's from like 2001 out of my old gateway laptop from when I was in the military).

The only thing I would like to see different with this device is a better set of instruction. If you are familiar with Sabrent though you will know that XP typically doesn't need a driver installed as they use standardized equipment and so on.


Basically this is the best bang for the buck.


Notes on the LED on the case:
green means it's ready and waiting (not in use/being read)
orange/redish light means it's either being read or written to.

I'm here buying my second Sabrent Slim... so obviously I've had a pleasant experience with the drive... however with that being said.. it has worn out after a little less than 6 months (the cord came apart at the end and broke apart). I do use it very frequently. For $7 though I'm sure you cant expect too much more.