The Basics:
Right out of the box my impression of the
Kingwin KF-4000-BK was a positive one. The enclosure has a rather simple appearance with no gawdy or gimmicky embellishments, which is what I wanted. Additionally, the empty rack had a bit of weight to it, which might not guarantee that it is high quality or heavy duty, but if it had felt extremely light I would have immediately questioned the quality.
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The images below show the empty drive rack. The sides are made of heavy aluminum, the top and bottom are made of sheet metal, and the front panel is a combination of metal and plastic. Opening up the doors increased the positive impression I was developing, as plastic may be the main portion of the doors, but steel is used on key components like the latches and the guide that pushes a drive into the opening. I have used other drive racks that have plastic latches, and even the ones that didn't break left me with little confidence as they would flex and creak while in use. The latching mechanism is definitely solid on the KF-4000-BK, and shouldn't provide any issues, even with high usage.
The below left image shows the side of the KF-4000-BK. The aluminum may help with cooling the drives, but the main thing I am hopeful for is that the design will allow this to be used in a case with tool-less drive bays. The sides seem to be slotted in the proper locations to allow slight lips in a case to slide through, and the positioning of the drive screw holes should line up with most tool-less drive mechanisms. The below right image shows the back of the enclosure. Here we see (from left to right): a 4-pin power connection for the two fans, an 8-pin header for drive status LEDs, the unique connections for the four data/power/status cables, and two 40mm fans.
In order to use the drive status indicators, you run the 2-pin lead from the connector to each drive over to the header on the left. It seems like it would have been easier to make this wiring all internal, and that way I would have also been happy to use my own SATA data and power cables.
