Home > Consumer Reviews > Acomdata Samba 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 Enclosure for PATA/SATA IDE Hard Drive SMBXXXU2E-BLK (Black)

This enclosure is solidly built, finely finished, with good fit for 3.5" internal hard drives of various brands, and easily to assemble. It offers IDE or SATA to USB 2.0 interfaces. The blue colored part is an aluminum case that helps dissipate the drive heat without cooling fan noises (the remainder gray parts are plastic). There are three popular colors in matte finish to choose from: red, blue, and black. The vertical stand is attached to the enclosure by a groove and two screws for added stability. The blue indicator light is an approximate match to the blue color of the enclosure case.

I used a Seagate IDE 250GB and a Hitachi SATA 500GB in the enclosure for the trials. Windows XP and Windows Vista readily recognized the assembled external hard drives. They were shown as USB devices with their respective hard drive product numbers and not the identity of the enclosure chipset. This could be important as some hard drive's proprietary software, such as Seagate DiscWizard, require the presence of the branded hard drive in order to be run. The data transfer was reliable, whether the file size was 2MB (photo files) or 49GB (a backup file). The data transfer rates were normal if not a little faster compared to my other external hard drives. The drives never got hot, just slightly warm during the data transfer or after being left on overnight.

I am particular about the position of the power switch. I do not buy any enclosure which power switch is jammed in between the power cable and the USB cable. This enclosure has the power switch conveniently located above the cables.

The tray that houses the hard drive is plastic, preventing the hard drive from making direct contact with the aluminum case for more effective heat dissipation. The side panel with the circuit board and internal connectors is screwed to the plastic hard drive tray, making frequent drive changes a risk of unthreading the screw holes.

Overall I am fond of this external hard drive enclosure, for its nice design and finish, dual internal hard drive interfaces, aluminum case, and reliable data transfer. I am using the Hitachi SATA 500GB in this enclosure permanently. I have also acquired a red for a 640GB SATA.

I tried this with both an old PATA/IDE and a new SATA drive; both worked flawlessly. The IDE drive required a jumper setting to "Master"; no jumpers were required for the SATA (WD Caviar). The printed manual is a lot better than what one usually sees with this type of product, but not as complete as the documentation on the included CD-ROM.

pros: very quiet, fanless, good build quality for the price, nice stand. Looks better than most enclosures.

cons: IDE connector is mounted on the PCB board, so you have to be a bit careful. The blue light is rather glaring.

I got two Acomdata Samba enclosures for the sole purpose of performing complete system backups for myself and other family members. The enclosures will be very difficult to use for that purpose. The computers I intended to use it for run Windows XP and Vista. Since Windows XP and Vista are listed in the enclosure's specifications, I assumed it would be usable for my intended purpose.

The problem is that the enclosure does not support Linux or DOS. Most backup programs require you to boot from their emergency CD or diskette when you want to restore your system from a backup. That makes sense. If your Windows has become corrupted and won't boot, or if the hard disk has failed and you have replaced it, you need to boot from an external medium like a CD, diskette, or flash drive in order to copy the image backup from your external drive to the disk in your computer. Most backup program's boot CDs or diskettes, don't boot into Windows. They boot into Linux or DOS, which are not compatible with the Acomdata drive. The result is that you have a complete system backup with no way to use it. I have verified that the Linux used by Acronis doesn't recognize the Acomdata drive, and since DOS is not listed in the Acomdata specifications, I assume DOS would not recognize the drive either.

I use Acronis True Image 10 for my backups. I tested the Acronis recovery CD with both Windows XP and Vista. In both cases the Acronis CD did not recognize the Acomdata drive. The hard disk I had in the enclosure was a 160GB Western Digital PATA IDE disk.

Since the Acomdata Samba specifications do not list DOS or Linux as being compatible, I only have myself to blame for getting enclosures that don't meet my needs. I think the Samba enclosure is a great enclosure for the price, for use as an external drive for data, but I thought I should warn people that it's not suitable as a system backup device. My next step is to research creating a BartPE CD that includes Acronis. That approach might solve the restoration problem.

I noticed another idiosyncrasy with the way the external drive works. On both XP and Vista, if the drive is plugged into the computer and turned on when the computer is booted, Windows does not recognize the drive. You must turn the external drive on after Windows is up and running. Only then will Windows recognize the drive.

Not much to say except 5 stars! Love the way it works with both SATA and PATA drives. Shoved a SATA 750GB Seagate drive in, and it runs like a champ. It's not going to be as fast as eSATA, but at this price, it's a winner for things like backing up your data, or as a huge "thumb drive" you can carry around (or grab-and-go in case of earthquake, fire, or flood).

I recently bought several of these. At first I was very happy with the them. The build quality seemed very nice, they were solid.

Then I noticed the heat, it wasn't significant but it was enough for me to take a closer look. The drives never spun down! I asked acomdata tech support about it and never received a response. I was concerned this could lead to premature failure, not to mention the extra heat added to the room and higher power usage.

I ended up returning them all and purchased another brand.

Also, just a minor gripe, the blue LEDs on the front were INSANELY bright. I had to either point them away or put electrical tape over the light, which is what I did. Even then, a surprising amount of blue light made it's way through the vents and illuminated the room at night.