Product Review: Inateck 2.5" External HDD Enclosure

I've reviewed a couple HDD-related products from Inateck recently, the Hard Drive Docking Station and the Dual Hard Drive Docking Station with Disk Cloning. Both have proven to be excellent products for a fair price.

But, for someone that just wants constant and immediate access to old hard drive data, or just wants to reuse an old hard drive, these might be overkill. Plus, the docking stations aren't exactly portable. The "toaster" design is works best sitting on a desk and used primarily to help with data retrieval and drive duplication.

Inateck also offers just a simple enclosure case for 2.5 inch that supports SATA-I, SATA-II, SATA-III, SATA HDD and SSD. Actually, the company offers three variations of the enclosure case, but the one I've been testing is the 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk HDD External Enclosure (model FE2005).

The variations between the Inateck hard drive cases are primarily on how the drive gets loaded into the enclosure. The one I've been testing uses a slide out drawer so you can insert the drive and then slide it directly into the housing to make the connection inside. Using this type of drawer mechanism makes it easier to also swap drives.

On its own the plastic used in the construction seems pretty flimsy, but once the drive is in place and locked, it's pretty solid.

The enclosure comes with a USB 3.0 port and cable making it fully plug-and-play compliant and offers automatic sleep and spin-down after 10 minutes for power savings. And, unlike the toaster docks, the Inateck HDD enclosure makes the hard drive fully portable. Shove it into a travel bag and have access to it whenever you need it.

You can find this particular enclosure case on Amazon for $16.99: Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 HDD SATA External Hard Drive Disk Enclosure Case

The other Inateck enclosures I mentioned offer different hard drive insertion methods.

The $12.99 model offers a lift-off housing that snaps in place: Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 HDD SATA External Hard Drive Disk Enclosure Case

The $14.99 model requires you to slide the drawer completely off the housing before you can insert the driver: Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk HDD External Enclosure/ Case

So, it really boils down to your preference, and if you want to spend another couple dollars. If you don't think you'll ever swap drives, the alternate models will suffice. But, if you think you might need to swap drives regularly, the one I have is probably your best bet.