Review: Antec Veris MX-1 Actively Cooled Hard Drive Enclosure

If there is one thing that every computer user could need more of it’s more storage space. Luckily these days hard drives are almost cheaper than gas (per gigabyte, that is) so it seems like a good time to fill up! However, if your like many people I know you might run into one of a few scenarios. First, you may not have space in your case for a new hard drive. Second, what if you want to carry a large amount of data around in a portable fashion? One of the better options to solve this conundrum these days is a external hard drive enclosure.

There have been a lot of different external hard drive enclosures made recently and many brands have already marketed several enclosures by this point in time. Well, many have, but not Antec. This is their first design and it looks like Antec is upping the ante by on the first go-around with their Antec Veris MX-1 Actively Cooled Hard Drive Enclosure.

Features

First off, let’s get the features out of the way, so we can know what to test and expect:

• Dual output interface – USB2.0 and eSATA (external Serial ATA) allows you to transfer data up to 480Mbps or 3Gbps respectively
• Supports up to 750G SATA hard disk drive
• Unique HDD cooler brings fresh air in and around HDD for maximum cooling to protect your valuable data
• Two layer (plastic with aluminum) upper and lower panels to absorb HDD and fan noise
• Carbon-glass filled frame to reinforce the strength of the whole enclosure
• Built-in silicone pad to absorb HDD noise
• Included USB cable, eSATA cable, and eSATA bracket to convert your PC’s internal SATA and eSATA
• Stand included
• Very quiet fan operation – under 22dBA
• Supports Windows 2000 / XP / ME / VISTA
• Blower fan keeps your hard drive cool and improves performance
• Silicone grommets to isolate drive vibrations
• Dual layer top and bottom panels absorb vibration and deaden fan noise
• Keeps hard drives up to 15°C cooler, improving the hard drives stability and lifespan

This is a very impressive feature list for a first generation enclosure. The major things to note here are the active cooling, silicone noise-reducing pad, the carbon-glass construction and hard drive cap of 750GB. The cooling is said to keep the drive “up to 15 degrees” cooler. Heat is the enemy. This is good. Noise reduction measures also bring the case in at a quiet 22 dBA. Sound is the enemy. This is also good. The carbon-glass and aluminum frame makes the case light, strong and heat conductive.

Finally, the last item on the list if the 750 GB drive limit. If you have a 1 TB hard drive, sorry sir, that’s not supported hardware. Or rather, I don’t have a terabyte drive here to try out so who knows. I can’t really see a reason for it to not work unless it’s an operating system limitation. Not to fret though as 750 GB is still a lot of space to work with. It’s not the size of the drive, it’s what you do with it! Now that we’re intimately familiar with the feature set, let’s move on to the real thing and see how it shapes up!

What’s In The Pretty Box?

The inside of the box is well packaged and upon further inspection yields everything you need to move forward with using your new enclosure:

• Power Adapter
• Line Cord
• eSATA PCI-slot cover
• eSATA cable
• USB 2.0 Cable
• Stand
• MX-1 Enclosure
• Manual

After taking a look at all the items, it’s apparent Antec didn’t cheap out on the accessories, which is what one would expect with the price tag on this enclosure. So far so good, so let’s take a look at the enclosure itself!

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