3.5in Enclosure - Externals
We'll start proceedings with the biggest of the Ultra duo, the 3.5" enclosure, AKA the Ultra Mini Portable Disk. Before we take a look, how about an overview of the specifications?
The Mini Portable Disk features both a USB2.0 and Firewire interface externally, both of which are bridged with an IDE channel internally. This gives up to 480Mib/s transfer rate in USB2.0 mode and 400Mib/s in Firewire. The IDE side supports pretty much any drive you throw at it, as it's ATA133 compliant.
The device is powered by an external power brick, as are most devices of this type. On the front of the enclosure are a number of LEDs for status indication. Ultra have chosen to install a small cooling fan in this enclosure - something that other manufacturers have decided against, or neglected to do.
Within the box you get everything but the hard drive. The enclosure omitted from the above picture, you can see what else is bundled with it. There's a CD with a USB driver, should you be running Windows 98 for some reason. There's a simple manual, which is handy if you're not quite sure how to take apart the enclosure and install a drive into it. Six screws ensure that when you install a drive, it won't be going anywhere. A Firewire and a USB cable is included, so your choice of interface is catered for.
Strangely, the power brick we received had a European plug on it. Although an adapter was provided, so it was still useable, it'd be nice to have a native power brick. Still, items such as power supplies are prone to change with products like this, so we'd hope that the majority of UK purchases of this product might feature a UK plug.
On the subject of power, the supply is rated to provide up to 2 amps of current at 12 volts. PSUs for external enclosures usually run pretty close their limit, but are usually able to handle the peak load under spin-up of the disk. We didn't run into any trouble with the Ultra enclosure with regards to power.
The front of the enclosure is used for both a power and activity LED, which shine through a number of clear plastic slots in the front. The combination of silver and dark coloured plastic only serve to point out that this product is made entirely from plastic.
Bottoms up, we can see the rubber stands for the drive. Given the location of the fan we'd recommend you stand the drive on its feet, rather than lay it on its side. If you remove the screw in both of the stands, these can be clipped off. This then allows you to remove a side panel and get inside the enclosure.
Around the back we finally get a glimpse of the fan. Further down there's a power switch, two Firewire ports (you can daisy chain Firewire, don't ya know,) a USB type-B socket and finally the power socket. The fan gives the enclosure a bit of a bulge at the top-back, but it's nothing obscene.
