Behind the lever assembly is the LCD PCB:

The grate on the left allows cooling air to flow through; the round black object in the middle is the alarm. The rear of the case

shows the drive connector and the thermistor:

Note that this measures the temp inside the case, not the actual drive temp.

The back of the drive case

shows the pin connector which mates to the sleeve. Circled in red is the jumper which designates whether the drive is a slave or master.

The drive is a snap to insert into the case:

Included are the appropriate screws for mounting the drive and securing the sleeve to the case, and a cable for drive status:

To test how well the EZ-SWAP cools the HD, I taped a thermocouple to the bottom of the drive's spindle, figuring this would show the highest temp. I then measured this temp with the drive in free air; that is, running at full tilt suspended on two small pieces of wood so that the HD was not resting on any surface.

I then installed the HD in the case and ran it again, measuring HD temp again. I used another thermocouple to measure ambient temps at the same time as HD temps were recorded.

Note: The LCD displayed temp: 22.0ºC

Looks like the fan is doing some good. Considering that the fan pulls ambient, not warm case air, into the sleeve, HD cooling may actually be somewhat better.

Overall, Vantec's EZ-SWAP allows easy hot-swap functionality for SATA drives, monitors HD status and keeps HDs a bit cooler in the process - not a bad package!

Thanks again to Vantec for sending this our way to evaluate.

Email Joe