If you fool with computers enough, you’ve got no option: eventually there are going to be computer parts stashed all over the place. What are these cables for? Why do we have 22 56k modems? What’s on these hard drives? I don’t know. Open one of the machines and install it. Which of them has SATA? I think that one over there is IDE-only. And that one has problems recognizing new drives unless they’re NTFS. Is it? Hell if I know. Man, what a pain in the ass, forget it.

We used to have a Western Digital USB external drive that I had dismantled when the drive inside had failed. (30 days after the warranty passed) We used this for random drive-checking, but it only supported IDE, and never went back together right, so ended up laying across the desk with wires all over.

Then, I found the Silver River DUO enclosure from Thermaltake. We picked this up from Newegg for about 45usd, and it supports both IDE as well as SATA drives. No clue how it handles SSD’s, we Winexxers haven’t jumped into that realm yet. Sometimes the bleeding edge of current tech is just too damned pricey.

Aside from my soon-to-be usual complaint about over-bright lights, this unit seemed to fit exactly what we needed. We can grab any hard drive We have lying about, and within a minute or two, be happily perusing the contents. One limitation: the interface can only handle up to 1000gigs, so those 1.5TB drives will have to go elsewhere. No, we don’t have any here, we weren’t worried.

 

The black and silver aluminum enclosure is designed to wick heat away from your drive, and actually feels pretty solid. I had expected it to look and feel somewhat cheap considering that it resides in the low end of the price hierarchy for enclosures.

Wandering the Internet, one can run across some reports of failures of the SR DUO, but that has not been in our experience.  We’ve swapped a couple dozen drives in and out of this thing, and it’s still going strong. It’s currently running as a 24/7 drive on an XP Pro machine with an 80gig IDE drive in it, and has been doing so for about a month, trouble-free.

Heat can be an issue, we had it lying flat on the desk, and it started getting pretty hot. Once the provided stand was fished out of the box and put on the unit, it cooled right down. Use the stand, it needs the airflow on all sides.

Switching out the drives could be easier, but that’s not to say it’s difficult to do. A screwdriver (included) is required to remove two screws and slide out the drive tray. I could justify this by pointing out that quick-release plastic bits can wear out, whereas the screws will last far longer…provided you don’t lose them.

Once open, you select the interface and power cables depending on the drive type. Keep the box, you’ll need it to store the extra cables, probably. Slip the drive in, attach the cables and slide the tray back in. Don’t pinch the LED power lead. That could have been better designed.

Select eSATA or USB. Plug in the power cord, plug in the eSATA or USB cord and Windows detects the device immediately. Except in the case that the drive is dead. Why do we have dead hard drives around? I don’t have the answer to that. Probably the same reason we have 5 13” CRT monitors in the garage.

Overall, we’ve been pleased with the Silver River DUO. There are a couple things that get a thumbs-down, but for the price, it does what it’s supposed to do with minimal headache.

Features
- Portable 3.5" Hard Disk Drive enclosure
- Supports all 3.5" IDE and SATA HDDs
- Compatible with notebooks, PCs, and Macs
- Hot-Swap ability for higher mobility
- USB 2.0 – Transfer speed up to 480Mbps
- ESATA – Transfer speed up to 3.0Gbps
- Supports up to 1,000 gigabytes
- Durable aluminum shell lowers HDD operating temperature by up to 40%

 

Pros: Looks good, inexpensive, IDE & SATA, USB & eSATA.

Cons: Too-bright light, disassembly could be easier, LED lead gets in the way.