Exterior Impressions

When you do take a good close look at the Eagle Consus M the very first thing that stands out like a sore thumb is that the black aluminum mesh on the top of the unit is there just for show. Unlike some other passive enclosures which take advantage of air convection and allow air in through aluminum mesh sides, this Consus M has an all plastic body that then has been dressed up with an aluminum mesh facade. Honestly the Consus M looks very sleek and stylish but if you are going to spend the money on adding aluminum mesh sides you might as well make it a functional part of the kit.

The next thing one notices is the front door is not flush fitted and rather a 1/8 of an inch gap has been purposely left between the door and the body. It is certainly striking and gives this enclosure an air of quirky uniqueness which fits in perfectly with its overall design scheme. Just like the Tagan Icy Box we reviewed just recently, the door opening mechanism is a small hole in the front side which is accessed with a small key. It would have been nice if they had included a button but the lack of external buttons makes the exterior of this case extremely slick and almost Apple-like in its minimalistic approach.

This enclosure’s minimalistic approach does not stop with a lack of any external button also continues into the power on & activity LEDs. The only way you can tell when this enclosure is powered on or is being accessed is by the pale blue glowing LED found at the back of the meshed side of the enclosure. When the unit is on, half of the plastic indicator glows and when Consus M is being accessed by a computer the other half lights up. This would be a perfectly reasonable and elegant way of dealing with things except for the fact that both the power LED and activity LED are both blue; and the clear indicator strip has a tendency to glow regardless of activity. Worse still, it only glows incrementally brighter when the enclosure is active. This minor oversight is more of an annoyance as you can easily tell by noise alone if your hard drive is active or not.

One nice touch was the inclusion of a stand for the Consus M. This allows the enclosure to be stood up on its edge which in turn takes up a great deal less space and in fact makes loading and unloading hard drives a lot easier. When the unit is laid down, the hard drive does not slip in as easy as they do when the unit is stood up, which makes sense as there is less surface contact between the hard drive and the enclosure. It really is the small things like this which make this such a pleasurable enclosure to work with and help transform it from a decent product to a damn good one.


As with all enclosures, the Consus M’s back is where all the connections are; however even here Eagle has gone for the less is more mantra. You get the typical on/off switch, a power connector and USB connector and at the top is the eSATA connector. Let’s face it, it’s the eSATA connector which makes this enclosure so desirable and looks downright perfect on this enclosure.