Installation and Operation:

The whole thing is held together by two screws found on the back, and by removing these the drive tray can be slid out of the front of the housing. You are left with the aluminum shell, the plastic stand and back plate, and the 3.5" SATA drive tray.


Taking a closer look at the tray reveals a small PCB at the back, with a few neatly arranged connections. The SATA data and power leads are well finished, and can actually be removed / replaced. A pair of wires runs from the PCB up to the front of the tray to provide power to the lighting seen through the Z1 logo up front. While we will have to wait to see what testing reveals, my initial thought is that this plastic tray inside a sealed housing won't help cool the drive. Having the drive make contact with the aluminum housing, perhaps by using an aluminum tray, might help it stay cooler.


While not tool-less, installing a drive is rather simple. With the tray slid out, a hard drive can be attached to the SATA data and power cables before being placed into the tray. Four screws are provided to secure the sides of the drive to the tray, and then it can be slid back into the housing and sealed back up.


A 250GB Maxtor Maxline III SATA 3Gbps drive was installed for this review, as seen in the images above. With everything assembled, the enclosure was connected to a system via USB and powered up for the first time. The image below shows how the Z1 logo lights up when in use, and the blue glow looks sharp surrounded by all the chrome trim.


While in use, the drive inside remained relatively quiet, and the noise associated with heavy activity was less than with other enclosures. One issue with noise is related to the plastic stand. It really would benefit from feet made of something like rubber or felt, as I found myself occasionally tapping the enclosure to get it to stop vibrating against my desk. The chatter of the stand against my desk was a bit of a chronic nuisance until I placed some felt on it myself.