Eagle Tech Consus M Hard Drive Enclosure Review

Installation

Just like the recently reviewed Icy Box IB-3220, the Consus M has a near tool-less hardware installation process. Just as we iterated before, this does have its advantage and disadvantages. The great thing about it is you literally just need to open the door, slide in the hard drive and gently close the door behind it (Eagle calls this process the F.I.T. or Fast Installation Technology). Then you turn on the device and plug the USB cable, Windows should instantly (or as instantly as Windows is capable of) recognize it and you should be up and running. This is the total hard drive installation process from start to finish. Pretty simple isn't it?

The downside to this Speedy Gonzales installation is the hard drive is only being supported by small plastic rails on each side and friction from the front door. This means if one of those front doors ever pops out while in transit, say goodbye to mister hard drive because Murphy’s law states that a hard drive is going to hit something hard (like concrete or asphalt...or something soft and then be run over by a bus).

If all this sounds familiar (and it should) it is because this enclosure has uses the exact same hardware installation as the Icy Box. We don’t mean similar we mean EXACTLY the same, heck even the small plastic keys are the same! It is very obvious either the Icy Box and the Consus M are made by the same OEM manufacturer or some other company has (hopefully) licensed this unique mounting system from them. Either way, it’s fast, it’s easy and it’s fairly secure. If you are worried about the door opening under normal wear and tear you shouldn’t. To make sure it is relatively secure, we mounted an old dead Maxtor SATA drive in it and purposely shook the sh….errr…ummm…the heck out if with the intent of trying to get the door to pop open. After a vigorous 30 minutes we gave up and went to apply some ICY HOT to our now aching shoulders and arms. We don’t recommend this at home but it does highlight how good the locking mechanism really is.