Review on 📦 StarTech.com eSATA Enclosure - Trayless Metal HDD Enclosure - USB 3.0 / eSATA - 3.5in SATA - External Hard Drive Enclosure by Jason Tinnen

I bought this case to house a 4TB WD Black drive. Bandwidth with eSata and USB 3 ports works great. The only downside is that the drive gets very hot in this case (126F after about 20 minutes of operation). Excessive heat over a long period of time can destroy the drive. I tried the drive in a swap tray on my PC and after a few tests it got around 100F. So everything is fine with the drive, only the case does not provide cooling. It has a single vent in the front that's partially blocked by a large drive detent, so there's no real airflow. I noticed that there is a cutout for a 30mm fan on the back of the case. I carefully cut and peeled off a section of the thin plastic cover on the back to reveal a fan cutout/grid to allow for some cross ventilation and the temperature was noticeably lowered (to around 115F). Still too hot for me. So I ordered a 30mm fan and already have a two-pin Y power connector (two plugs per socket) that I will use to power the fan. Such a small fan is only around 4-5 cfm, but hopefully this will bring the drive temperature down to a more manageable level. Yes, this will void my warranty, but my only option was to return the product. Since I like everything else about this business, I decided to take a chance. Strangely, the cutout for the fan is already there, but there is no fan! Since this is one of the most expensive cases of its kind, you might think the manufacturer included it, especially since 30mm fans are quite cheap at just a few bucks. Once I've installed the fan I'll update my review to indicate if it makes a noticeable difference (I suspect it will, but we'll have to wait and see).