SUMMARY: Data on the go, with big bold bubble lighting

The good folks at Kingwin were kind enough to send one of their External Hard Drive Enclosures to take a look at.

Pictured above is a pair of Kingwin's external enclosures. Today, we'll look at their 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure (the top box of the two).

If you're interested in the 5.25" Optical Drive Enclosure (the lower box shown above), it's own seperate review is coming very soon. Stay tuned! ;)

Kingwin offers three different variants of their 3.5" model as seen here, with the differences being connectivity. They are:

• KH-350UF, USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 (Firewire) connectors (two of them)
• KH-350F 2x IEEE 1394 (Firewire) only
• KH-350U USB 2.0 only

The exact model seen here is the third, with USB 2.0 only.

These items are also available from Kingwin in a black finish as well as silver.

• Bus Interface: USB 2.0
• Compliance: USB 2.0 EHCI based
• Data speed: USB 2.0: 1.5/12/480 Mbps
• Rear panel connection: USB "B" type receptacle (A to B cable included)
• Suitable for all IDE 3.5" HDDs, up to 350GB supported
• Plug & play and hot-swapping capability
• Large bubble light LEDs for Power ON (Blue) and HDD Activity (Orange)
• Cypress chipset based USB controller
• Power supply: 12V/1.7A, 20w switching AC/DC power adapter (included)
• 2 stands (included)
• Dimensions: 8 7/8"(227 mm)L x 5 7/8"(151 mm)W x 1 1/4"(32 mm)H
• Weight: 3.00 lb

Mentioned above are a few included items. Let's look at what does come in the box:

Pictured here (clockwise): the enclosure, the power adapter, stands, and a bag containing the USB cable, driver disk, and User Manual.

Included also (inside the enclosure) is a small bag with four screws for mounting your hard drive.

The KH-350U does require the power adapter to operate. The lead from it to the enclosure is fairly generous (just over four feet long), as is the USB cable (which measures six feet). Finding a place for this on your desktop and being able to plug it in should pose no problems.

The User Manual details the specs as highlighted above, driver installations for Windows 9x and Mac systems (not required for Windows 2000/ME/XP), and assembly.

Assembly is very straight forward, and those who've installed a hard drive in their own systems before won't even need the instructions. It's very easy to mount one in this enclosure.

Let's do that next, and we'll have a look at the case, electronics, and those big bubble lights along the way.