Impact 3.5in SATA HDD Enclosure
Reviewed by Eddie Hargreaves
RadTech $110 USD Requirements: 3.5in SATA hard disk drive Strengths: Quiet; Simple drive installation; Necessary cables included; Aluminum styling matches professional Macs; Horizontal or vertical standing. Weaknesses: No FireWire 400 port; Flimsy back panel. |
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Introduction
Most modern Macs use SATA hard drives, which provide tremendous data transfer speed over regular ATA drives. But if you pull that drive out of your computer, it can be difficult to find a compatible enclosure to put it in. RadTech’s Impact line is one such enclosure, but there are some caveats.
Getting Started
It is very simple to install a naked SATA drive into the Impact enclosure (provided you have Philips screwdrivers #0 and #1): simply screw the drive into the sled, slide the sled into the back of the enclosure and screw closed the back cover. Unfortunately, the model I tested had a very flimsy back cover that did not stay securely attached at all four corners. This did not affect the performance of the enclosure, which is otherwise very rugged. In fact, it’s sturdy enough you can stack other external drives on top. Of course, that’s only if you lay it horizontally. You can also stand it vertically using the provided stand.
The enclosure is also pretty compact for a 3.5in drive, helped by the fact that there is no fan. The aluminum alloy shell cools the interior through convection. The absence of a fan also means the enclosure is very quiet. There is very little noise when the drive is spun up and no noise when it’s spun down.
The SATA enclosure has four connection ports: two FireWire 800, one USB 2.0 mini-port and one eSATA port. No current Macs ship with eSATA connectivity, so that’s not yet a big bonus point for Mac users (although it may come in handy in the future).
Using the Hardware
Thankfully, the enclosure came with all the necessary cables, including a FW800 to FW400 adapter. Since there are a lot of Macs that do not have FW800, this is extremely useful. But if you want to daisy-chain this device to your other FW400 drives, you’ll need another cable. Otherwise it’ll need to sit at the end of the chain. And when it was at the end, I discovered the drive would not mount on the Mac unless one of the in-between drives was powered up.
Conclusion
If you have a homeless SATA drive, RadTech’s Impact enclosure isn’t inexpensive, but it’s incredibly quiet and unobtrusive. And if you have a professional Mac (PowerBook G4, PowerMac G5, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro) it’ll be especially speedy and stylish.
