StarTech.com eSATA Enclosure - for 3.5in SATA HDD - USB 3.0 / eSATA - Trayless - Metal - External Hard Drive Enclosure - HDD Enclosure Black USB 3.0 / eSATA (Trayless)

This is a good external drive bay. I already have one and wanted another. But buy it somewhere else if you can. I bought from Amazon because I couldn't find the version that includes eSATA anywhere else, and it provides some benefit like being able to collect smart statistics. Typical of Amazon it's been picked over and returned or something and the required power supply was missing.

The description says it works with all 3.5" internal HDD drives. That is incorrect. Internal Seagate HDD drives have 2 screws on each side so that makes the width wider than 3.5" and they don't fit. Therefore, they don't work with this type of drive. Purchased this based on their claim and had to return it. The description should not say that it works with ALL 3.5" drives when it doesn't.

Great way to reduce the stress on your USB busses if you have an eSATA port. If you don't, you can add a pci card. Hot swapability is a bonus. Comes with cables. I added 4 rubber feet so it doesn't slide around. So impressed, I bought a second one for another machine.

This case is very well designed, and also very well supported. The most important thing about it, for me at least, is the lack of forced power off. That is, unlike most of the other cases I've tried, it DOES NOT force powerdown/spindown at arbitrary, undocumented, and unconfigurable intervals. This means that one can configure the drive (if desired) to power down or spin down when *IT* is ready. This permits self-tests and internal HDD management features to run to completion, unlike other cheaper cases which just cancel such things while they are in progress. Also notable is that, when one (of the many I've purchased) of these cases had a minor packaging problem, the manufacturer sent me an entirely new case since they didn't have the exact part in stock at the time. I don't anticipate using any other style of case.

The plug it comes with is American. How can I exchange for a UK plug? Not sure why they’re selling this on the UK Amazon if the plug isn’t suitable for the UK.