Exterior Impressions

With its gently sweeping front curve to its minimalistic approach to power and drive indicators, everything about this enclosure screams elegance and refinement. There are absolutely no rough or sharp edges anywhere on this device and even the hard drive doors blend seamlessly from one to another. Even with just a quick glance one can instantly recognize that a lot of time, effort and money went into refining this enclosure from just another ugly black box into a true work of art.


As mentioned, the front of the MobileSTOR is not your typical blunt nose affair; rather, it has a gentle incline to the top third which allows the necessary height of the rest of the unit to blend seamlessly into the drive doors. If you look closely on the front right of the drive doors, you will notice two small holes. The large hole is where the door locking mechanism is hidden from view. By inserting the plastic tooth pick looking key into this hole, the door handle pops open, allowing you instant removal of not only the drive bay but also the hard drive (if one has been previously inserted).

The smaller hole located slightly lower and to the right of the large hole is where the power indicator, drive failure and even drive activity LEDs are housed. While on paper this sounds like a lot of indicators crammed into a small area it actually works very well in practice and keeps the amount of glare from these LEDs to a muted and user friendly level. This is especially nice if you’re using this device in a darkened room as the LEDs are more than bright enough to do their jobs, but they will not make a nuisance of themselves and ruin your night vision.


When the drive doors themselves are opened you can see hoe Sans Digital designed these doors with internal air flow in mind, for just behind the door handle of the drive tray are large vents which allow the rear exhaust fan to suck fresh air in and over the hard drives. This is great engineering and is a very subtle yet effective way of shaping internal air movement.

Above the drive doors is where the power LED indicator, high temperature and alert indicator are located. The temperature indicator is a very nice touch since you can visually check and see if the enclosure is overheating without resorting to software-based solutions. As an added bonus, to the right of these LEDs is a button marked “mute” and as the name implies it mutes the audible warning which sounds if/when the unit begins to overheat. Yes, as this information does suggest, not only does the MobileSTOR come with visual alerts when things get to hot but also audible warning as well. This was certainly a feature and once again reaffirms Sans Digital’s obvious commitment to customer satisfaction.


The back of the MobileSTOR is, as usual, where all the various connectors, fan and RAID adjustment are located. As a nice addition a diagram explaining what each of the numbers on the dial mean is silk screened onto the back lower right hand corner in bold yet clear white lettering. The only issue we have with the idea of having a recessed adjustment screw for the RAID control is the fact that there is no pointer (or any indicator for that matter) on the screw head to give you a clear idea of whether the enclosure is in JBOD mode (screw at position 1) or Safe50 (position 5) for example.

For all you eagle eyed readers who noticed we did not include the usual power brick in the long list of accessories, fear not for it was not an oversight. This unit has a built in power supply and just like your computer you need only a regular computer power cord to connect this unit to your power grid. Of course we still recommend you use a UPS or at the very least a surge protector since a bad brown out or surge will fry this enclosure just as fast as it will fry your computer.

Overall a close inspection of the outside of the MobileSTOR just reaffirms our first impression that this is a very nice piece of kit. It also obvious Sans Digital took the time to get it right.