Home > Consumer Reviews > Coolmax 2.5 Esata External Enclosure with USB2.0 & Data Backup

I just got one of these enclosures, and installed a 2.5" WD 160GB (Scorpio) SATA drive in it, and it works fine running off of a single USB2 port on my PC.

The case itself is very nice, all metal (though I wish they had a black one), and the mounting of the drive seems very secure, with 4 screws attaching the drive to a PCB inside the case. There's a power LED and a separate activity LED on the "front" of the case.

The item comes with lots of "goodies", including:

- USB2 "Y" cable (data + power)
- USB power-only cable
- e-SATA PCI bracket
- e-SATA cable
- Small Philips screwdriver (you'll need this one to open the case :)!)
- Small cloth bag for the enclosure
- Manual/guide
- CD w/Win98 driver and backup utility

I haven't tried the e-SATA capability yet, but USB2 seems pretty good. HDTach run on the 160GB produced ~36 MB/s burst and ~33 MB/s average, with 5% utilization.

Overall, a very nice enclosure!!

I bought mine 9 months ago and it did what it should. So I bought another enclosure from CoolMax ( their 250.) Bad idea. The USB function worked fine for both. But now using ESATA, attempts to copy files to either Coolmax product crash the PC, every time. (vanilla E-machine, Win XP.) Unplugged new drive and older one now had crash disease and is junk. Tech support was no help,speaking only of unspecified problems with ports or drivers. Request (with details of my equipment) for any specific recommendations on drivers, cards, etc went unanswered. The more recent purchase was eligible for RMA. The older, still under warranty, is worthless.

it worked without issue for about a year in a very mobile environment... i liked that it had an e-sata port, although i never made use of it. recently it stopped working due to loose mini-usb port/cable.

There was no CD is the pack while the pack components list and the picture of the product show that there showuld be a CD.

I tried to link it to the Laptop but it didn't work.

Pros:
Unit ships with $20 worth of cables, adapters, screws and screwdriver.
Amazon's return policy.

Cons:
Unit was DOA.
Aluminum shell is very thin compared to others.
Back plate is not securely attached to the printed circuit board.
Hard drive is not able to securely attach to SATA connector.
Missing CD. (not like I needed Windows 98 drivers anyway...)
Speaking of Windows 98... XP and Vista do not appear to be supported.
Model HD-211-eSATA is not even listed on their web site.
Have to wait another week to finish this project.