Buy Vantec NexStar 3 NST-260U2-BL 2.5-Inch IDE to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (Midnight Blue)Vantec NexStar 3 NST-260U2-BL 2.5-Inch IDE to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (Midnight Blue) Product Description:
- Mirror Finished Aluminum Casing Cools Down Your Hard Drive
- Easily Add Storage to Any System with USB
- Hot-Swappable: Plug and Play Without Rebooting
- Compatible with PC or Mac
- Support 2.5-inch IDE Hard Drive up to 250GB
Product Description
Form and functionality collide with style in the NexStar 3 External Hard Drive Enclosure from Vantec. With its mirror finish, sleek curves and bold colors, the Vantec NexStar 3 stands out from the crowd. The sturdy drive cage protects your hard drive while the aluminum case effectively draws away the heat, protecting your drive from overheating. Available in 3 vivid colors (Onyx Black, Brilliant and Midnight Blue), the NexStar 3 lets you store your personal data in an enclosure that matches your style!
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Worked great, no flaws
By This Is Not
I had been searching for a USB 2.0 enclosure for my 80GB 5400RPM notebook hard drive for a long time now. I browsed other sites that offered enclosures for $15 or less. They never worked and some of them even required three open USB 2.0 ports (one port for syncing and two ports for power).It is worth it to come over to Amazon.com and spend the extra $5-$10 for this product. It requires only one USB 2.0 port (or powered USB 1.1 port), does not need external AC power (but it does come with a 5V AC plug on the back), and the enclosure stylish. It took me 2 minutes to put my older 80GB hard drive in it and start copying data. This unit comes with drivers but it is completely plug-and-play for Windows XP/Vista and the latest Mac OS X release. You don't have to install the drivers either (hence the plug-and-play). I also have a 160GB 2.5" hard drive in another notebook (the data on it wasn't important) and it works with that drive too. Other enclosures require that you plug them into their AC power adapters when working with drives of 100GB or larger, not this one.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.Great product, does what it's supposed to and looks good too.
By Anjana Nigam
Wish I could tell everyone with a failed notebook about this excellent product that will let them recover data from their hard drive. It not only looks sleek with its polished blue satin finish exterior but it also works very well.My IBM Lenovo T43 laptop suffered water damage recently due to a mishap at a friend's place. Data recovery was most important even before I sent in the laptop for repairs. This gem of a device helped me get the data off the 80 GB 5400 rpm (Hitachi make)drive in a jiffy.Since I had to scour the internet for information before I understood what the deal was on data recovery, here's the skinny for non techies like me who're wondering if this is the right enclosure. You need to know that there are are 2 kinds of enclosures. One is called IDE (usually has 44 pins) and another is called SATA. Your hard drive will have the information usually printed on it somewhere or you can check the manufacturers website so that you can buy the right enclosure. Notebooks usually use 2.5 inch enclosures while desktops use 3.5 inch, the actual dimensions may be different. My IBM HDD (Hitachi) is actually 2.75 inch wide but it's still called a 2.5 inch for naming purposes. So once you've bought the right type and size of enclosure you're ready to go. Another good point to note is that some enclosures come with fans and others do not. This one does not but the manufacturer claims that the aluminum shell is a good conducting material which allows your drive to remain cool.Downloading my data with this enclosure was a breeze. My HDD was mounted on a thin steel cage and had an attached caddy, I had to remove all the screws to remove the caddy and the steel cage before I could connect it. Once your hard drive is connected you slide it into the aluminum casing and screw on the top, and you're done. The next step is to connect it to your computer with the supplied cable. The cable has an extra USB connector so you can get extra power to your hard drive. You may be able to get away with using only the main USB connector if you're short on USB ports. I plugged in both and the drive was up and away.If you need to make an exact image of your hard drive containing the operating system you may need some additional software, which is available on the web and also from vendors. I just needed to download all my music, docs and pictures so I was able to do it through Windows Explorer.Once you're done you can use your HDD as an external USB drive. I like the fact that this enclosure has a blue light that comes on and tells you when your hard drive is in the read/write mode so that you don't pull the plug when it's working. That's the easiest way to HDD failure.I haven't used this enclosure long enough to know whether it will keep the drive cool if I keep it plugged in. Probably not, but for now it helped me get back my data safe and sound. For that alone it deserves 5 stars! It was priced at $25 in the first week of January, the price keeps fluctuating so I would watch out for a good deal.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.Fantastic Buy All Around
By David Wendland
I try to make these short and to the point.+ Solid Alumninum Enclosure+ Amazing exterior - polished - first class appearance+ Quiet!+ Easy to install!+ Great instructions, carrying case, cables, screws!+ Nothing could beat the value with its appearance, accessories and price!- the only negative is its pretty narrow and can't stand up on its end like it shows in the pic without the risk of it falling over...and on its side it just doesn't look like it should...but if its in a safe place it can work but its a potential vulnerability...
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