Tech Goes Boom

Look out for Speed Metal Drive Cases

Don't know how many people out there are using them, but a word of caution.

the Speed Metal HD cases are a very cool product. They are really easy to work with and install drives into, and they have pretty good bridge boards as well. Too bad the power supplies are crap. I have 2 Firewire cases and one USB2 case. They all use the same power supply. After about 6 months of use, one of the drives in one of my cases fried. That drive was dying anyway, so I wrote it off. When I put another drive in there though, it promptly fried it. I busted out the voltmeter and it turns out that instead of outputting 12v to the drive, it was outputting nearly 18v. This cooked the controller board. One of the other power supplies is currently outputting 14v and I'm betting that as it ages, that output is going to increase.

You can find these cases at Fry's and I warn you against them. Spend a little more money and buy a better quality case.