For you that do not know actually what a SATA Backplane let me give you a brief understanding. It’s a small box that usually fit into an optical drive bay or two there are even some 3.5” models that allows the usage of multiple hard drives. The models fitted for the 5.25” bay can usually support both 2.5” and 3.5” drives while the smaller unit can only support multiple 2.5” drives. And if you get a good one you will even get Raid support.

Not too long ago we did a write-up on the Vantec MX400-SR Raid enclosure which we gave the ‘Recommended’ for its support for two drives and a couple different forms of Raid. But it only supported USB 2.0 which is no longer the speed demon we need when it comes to data transfer. So, Vantec has graced us with the newest model of the device and has labeled it the 400MX-S3R. the newer version gives us the USB 3.0 speed we want and plus eSATA for versatility.

The first will be the NST-D400SU3 aka NexStar SuperSpeed Dual Bay hard drive dock. After the introduction of enclosure, docks soon followed and in many cases became more useful than an enclosure. There is no assembling and disassembling, just plug and go. The D400SU3 is ideal as it can hold two drives. One added feature to this new model is you can take advantage of both high-speed connections….eSATA and USB 3.0.

Our friends at Vantec have sent to us over our first multi-drive 2.5” rack in the form of the MRK-425ST-BK or the F4 Quad Bay rack. The rack installed in a single 5.25” optical drive bay and can house a total of four 2.5” SATA drives allowing you to get rid the interior HDD cages and allow for better airflow in many cases.

Icy Dock is a leader when it comes to making anything that has to do with hard drive mounting and HDD enclosures. The few products we have seen from them have been of the best quality and pretty simple when it came time to actually use them. We don’t believe these new products will be any different.

And with my laptop being my main PC, I seldom even use my optical drive for anything. so, the people at Silverstone has given people like us another use for that space the optical drive take without actually losing the drive.  The TS06 is an external enclosure for your internal optical drive and also provide you the opportunity to use the space the drive once took up for addition storage space. A little confused? Read on and I will elaborate for you. 

External hard drive enclosures are a dime-a-dozen in this day and age, with more and more of them hitting the market. Many of them are single drive units that are good for a quick way to store or access your data externally, but this type of enclosure is not fitted for all of us. With the size of today’s hard drives (3TB at time of writing), losing even one could be a devastating ordeal. This is when our next product for evaluation comes in. The SilverStone DS321 enclosure can house two 3.5” SATA drives, provides you with the option to run them in RAID, topping it all off by connecting through the ultra-fast USB3 bus. This look like something you've been waiting for? Read along as we dig into it.

We have explored many hard drive enclosures over the year, many of them pretty simple in operation and some that offered more for the money like encryption or ease to install. This new enclosure from SilverStone praises on the latter as it makes hooking up a drive painless and easy. The RVS02, which is from the Raven line of component from SilverStone, sleek, good looking and fast.

The MH-2624 is not only an enclosure meant to be used with 2.5” drives but it is also an SATA adapter, capable of being used for anything with a SATA connection regardless of if it is 2.5”, 3.5” or 5.25”. With the MH-2624 you are getting two devices in one. Read on.

The first enclosure we will be taking a look at will be the MH-2612 for 2.5" drives, which looks similar to many other HDD enclosures on the market. The thing here is we were able to take the unit and get it plugged into the system in no time at all. No tools were needed and the performance did turn out to be very good thanks to the USB3 support. Read on.